01-12-2019
BY JACK BULLOCK
CARMI – Carmi-White County's Ethan Mahon may have had better games in his prep basketball career.

However it is unlikely the 5-foot-11 junior guard could've produced a better offensive start of a contest than he enjoyed on Monday night at the 40th annual Carmi-White County Invitational Tournament.

This shooting guard opened his evening by hitting his first six field goal attempts, including four 3-pointers as he staked his Bulldogs to an early led they never surrendered.

The hosts led from “start to finish” in their 64-48 triumph over Harrisburg in Game 3 of the long running event.

Mahon got his buddies involved more later on in the contest as his teammates picked up the scoring slack as CWC improved to 5-9 on the season.

Mahon scored 22-points on the night as Coach Kevin Wolff's club are in title contention after the first night of the round-robin affair.

“Mahon is the guy we go to. He is a really nice player and he got us off to a great start tonight. But the odd thing is I don't think he took a shot in the second half, which I think shows his maturity. He helped get the other guys involved,” said Coach Wolff. “They (Harrisburg) made some adjustments on him and he didn't force the ball up.”

Six-foot-three senior Adam Phelps helped out in scoring on the inside as he added 19-points and nine rebounds, leading Carmi-White County to a 29-18 edge on the glass.

The two combined for a hot-shooting 16-of-25 from the floor and Mahon canned 4-of-6 from the arc.

Sophomore guards Devin Rankin and Ty Barbre added eight and seven-points respectively in a much needed victory for the hosts.

Harrisburg has struggled this season and Coach Randy Smithpeters has seen signs of good play but not the consistency it takes to compete so far in 2018-19.

His Bulldogs are now 4-12 on the season and 0-1 in the CWCIT.

Six-foot-two sophomore guard Jessie Lawler let Harrisburg with 15-points while 6-foot-3 senior forward Will Sanders netted 12.

Guards Andrew Bittle (9) and Will Gibbs (8) added to the offense.

However it was the defensive end of the floor that dug the rut that these purple clad Bulldogs could crawl out of in the opening minutes.

Losing Mahon was a recipe for disaster as the shooting guard got hot in a hurry in the first period.

He scored three consecutive times on his first three attempts, hitting a pair of 3-pointers and also a cut to the basket for a lay in and an 8-2 advantage.

Harrisburg got a couple of early scores from Bittle and Sanders to keep pace, with Bittle hitting a trey to whittle the CWC lead down to 8-7 with 4:25 left.

That was as close as HB would get the rest of the way.

Mahon closed out his stellar run with three more baskets.

Another drive in the lane and then back-to-back bombs from the right corner and the left wing pushed the lead to 16-7.

After a bucket by Lawler, Phelps got his first score of the contest on a rebound basket to finish the period, 18-9 CWC.

“We shoot poorly and we did tonight. But definitely the main problem was letting Mahon get off to the start we let him get off to,” said Coach Smithpeters. “We got on the bus back at Davenport Gym with the idea of not allowing that to happen. Then it happened. It was not a good defensive half. I thought we played harder than Carmi but we dug such a hole early that we just weren't able to get out of it.”

Coach Smithpeters saw his club hit just 4-of-15 from the floor in the first quarter as they fell behind.

The second quarter wasn't much better for the visitors.

Trailing just 23-13 after a bucket by junior forward Zane Hayes, Harrisburg saw the Carmi-White County go on its biggest scoring run of the night.

These Dawgs “dogged” Harrisburg with a 13-0 run.

Mahon had his hand in three of the scores; scoring on a pair of driving lay ups, one on a nice move in the lane for a left handed scoop shot that he got to fall.

He also assisted on a bucket by 6-foot-6 sophomore Payton Edwards.

Edwards scored twice on the inside on consecutive possessions and Rankin ripped home a 3-pointer.

When Edwards got an assist from Rankin with 2:11 to go before intermission, Carmi-White County had its largest advantage of the night, 36-13.

“Edwards is a sophomore, he is our project. Early on in the year he was strictly playing JV but he has had some outstanding practices in the last two or three weeks so we decided to make the change and get him in the starting lineup,” said Coach Wolff.

Harrisburg junior Darion Barners scored his only two-points right before the half and Sanders got a gift of a bad inbounds pass by CWC that turned into a buzzer beating shot to cut the deficit to just 36-17 heading to intermission.

It took nearly three quarters of play before the hosts cooled down offensively.

Phelps scored 11 of his points in the third quarter, including a 3-pointer from the right wing for a 41-19 lead.

“Whenever we needed a bucket we got him (Phelps) on the blocks and he is just so strong,” said Coach Wolff. “He is good around the basket.”

He added consecutive scores on the inside and closed his frame on another bucket in the paint as CWC was still comfortably ahead at 49-32 with under a minute remaining in the stanza.

Funny thing about high school basketball games.

In most cases, a team will make at least one offensive run and it usually is spawned from the defensive end of the floor.

Harrisburg made their run in the fourth quarter as they made things interesting in the final frame.

Lawler scored three times while Bittle and Sanders also provided points in an 10-2 run that cut the CWC lead down to just seven-points.

Lawler made two nice spin moves in the lane while Bittle scored on an assist from Lawler.

Sanders tossed in a pair of free throws and Lawler closed the run with a basket off of an inbounds play as suddenly Harrisburg was down just 53-46 with 3:17 left.

After bothering CWC with its full court pressure, Harrisburg's overplaying on defense finally hurt them late.

Back-to-back scores breaking the press by Carmi and four consecutive made free throws by Barbre, which turned into 5-of-6, and a lay in off of their spread offense closed the scoring.

Harrisburg needed some successful offensive possessions at the end of the matchup but they didn't score again in the final 2:41.

These Bulldogs committed three of their five fourth quarter turnovers in that time frame.

Harrisburg end up 21-of-47 overall, but just 2-of-12 from the 3-point arc.

However it was the bad offensive start (8-of-28 in the first half from the field) and defensively losing Mahon early that sealed their fate.

“A Coach Smithpeters' team is going to never give up. At times it has been shaky for us this year. We have had second half leads that we squandered but that was earlier in the year when we weren't as mature,” said Coach Wolff. “It did a little close but we made the free throws down the stretch and made some critical plays that got the lead back extended.”

CWC finished up 23-of-48 but were 7-of-14 from the outside.

The host Bulldogs ended up 11-of-16 from the foul line as they kept Harrisburg from many free throw chances (4-of-5) by committing just nine personal fouls.

Coach Wolff's club committed just seven turnovers in the win while Harrisburg had 12.

The 64 percent shooting from Mahon and Phelps got Carmi-White County the win that they needed to open its tournament.

Both teams head right back into action on Wednesday night with Harrisburg playing Edwards County at 5:30 pm while the hosts tangle with ABV 2A ranked Fairfield at 8:30 pm.

“We've got things that we have to get better at and it may not be things that we get better at overnight. We've got to make shots, and we didn't in the first half,” said Coach Smithpeters. “You can't beat people doing that. We just have to improve.”

Brett Doan, a 6-foot-2 senior guard, scored 13-points and 6-foot-6 sophomore Kaleb Applebey added 10-points and grabbed 10-rebounds for the Aces.

Mt. Carmel did most of their damage on the inside, hitting 16-of-24 from inside with Rager nailing 8-of-11 himself.

Behind Applebey Coach Buss' bunch held a 27-15 rebounding edge.

Defensively Mt. Carmel suffocated the Lions defensively, holding Coach Russ Gerlach's group to just 13-of-39 shooting.

Cade Schnicker, a 6-foot-2 junior guard, was the only Edwards County player to get to double-figures in scoring as he finished with 10.

Mt. Carmel committed just nine-fouls as they didn't allow Edwards County (7-8) to get to the free throw line.

The Aces were 12-of-16 from the charity stripe.

Sophomore guard Landon Zurliene netted 13-points while senior teammate Brian Estes tossed home 12.

Junior forward Kane Hixenbaugh added 11 while junior guard Wyatt Gilbert scored 10

Senior guard Jayzale O'Neal chipped in nine-points in the route of the of the 1-11 Wildcats.

The Mules were a smoking hot 31-of-51 (60.7 percent) from the floor and hit 11-of-18 from the arc.

Estes hit 6-of-7 from the floor while Zurliene bombed away from the outside, hitting 4-of-7 from downtown.

After leading just 15-10 at the end of one quarter, Fairfield put it in high gear by rolling to a continuous clock advantage late.

The Mules outscored Mt. Vernon (IN.) 54-16 in the middle two quarters.

The Wildcats got 10-points from senior guard Ben Varner in defeat.

MV was just 14-of-47 from the field and coughed up 24-turnovers.