TIPTON, Ind. —
The Madison-Grant boys basketball team had its back against the wall playing in Class 2A No. 2 Tipton’s gymnasium for a sectional title.
But that didn’t stop the Argylls from giving the home team everything it could handle in a 70-58 loss.
The Argylls (9-13) had one more disadvantage: They had to go against University of St. Louis signee Mike Crawford, and he was approaching the 2,000-point plateau for his career.
Madison-Grant didn’t back down, holding the Blue Devils’ star to 0-for-9 shooting from the field and four first quarter points. Shutting him down led to the visitors taking a 13-12 opening-period lead.
Andrew Schwinn hit a 3-pointer to give Madison-Grant a 9-8 lead, and he finished with all five of his points in the first quarter. Jeremy Johnson scored four points.
Crawford heated up in the second quarter by scoring 14 of his team’s 22 points, and that essentially rallied his team to the win as the Blue Devils outscored the Argylls 22-8. They went into halftime up 34-21.
Tipton (23-2) held a 16-point advantage on two different occasions in the third quarter, but Madison-Grant cut it to 47-35 heading into the final stanza behind the play of Tyler McClellan’s 3-of-3 shooting for six of his 20 points in the game.
With 7:11 to play in the game, Crawford hit a mid-range jumper for his 2,000th point, and an already raucous crowd became even more rowdy. But that didn’t deter the Argylls as they cut the lead to 49-42 with 5:44 to play.
In the end, Crawford’s shooting pulled his top-ranked team to a hard-fought win as he hit all four of his shots in the final period and scored 13 of his 35 points in the final eight minutes of play.
“They competed,” Madison-Grant coach John Irwin said of his players. “They had great focus coming in, they blocked everything else out and they just flat-out competed.”
He said that if his team played like it did last night, it could’ve won 17-18 games this season.
Irwin said that he knew his top scorers coming into the season would be Johnson and McClellan, and they didn’t disappoint their coach with 20 points each in the sectional final.
“That was good for them to end. At least if it had to end it ended like this,” said Irwin. “They went out guns blazing.”
“I don’t listen to the crowd,” said Tipton’s Crawford. “I knew how many I needed coming in, but it wasn’t on my mind. I just wanted to win, and we did that so it all worked out. It was pretty cool.”
Crawford was humble after the game, crediting the play of Madison-Grant.
“We have a target on our back,” he said. “The played well, they shot the ball well and they drove the ball well. They played really good.”
No other Argylls player reached double figures aside from McClellan and Johnson. McClellan led his team with six rebounds on the night.
Nathan Friend was the only other double figure scorer for Tipton with 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds.
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Related Photos
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Madison-Grant's Tyler McClellan shoots from three-point range during a game against Liberty Christian earlier this season. Don Knight
Discussion
Argylls fall in final to No. 2 Tipton
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