Unbeaten in district, #4 CAK boys edge rival Grace
Junior Teeno Hutchinson broke a 48-48 tie by draining a three-point jumper with 1:24 left in the fourth quarter.
The Warriors, improving to 18-2 overall while ranked No. 4 statewide in latest TWSA Division II-A poll, held off the feisty Rams — sweeping rival GCA during the regular season — with a 58-54 district victory.
“Teeno’s been playing well. He’s one of our most talented players,” CAK head coach J.D. Johnson said about the junior, who scored eight points overall. “That was a big-time shot; he’s fearless.”
Two Warriors provided the bulk of their team’s scoring: senior wing Caden Owens and junior post Foster Coleman each scored a co-game-high 19 points.
While winning yet another close game, “That’s been us all year; we just gutted it out,” Johnson said.”We just kind of refuse to die; we got the stops (defensively) we needed to get and got it done.
“Really a good win for us,” he added.
Though the Warriors broke ahead 18-10 after one quarter, Grace Christian zoomed back to take a 28-25 halftime lead.
The game was tied at 43 entering the fourth quarter, as Owens kept the home team close by scoring 12 of his points in that eight-minute span.
A nice pass from Bryson White, CAK senior wing, to Owens, senior forward, ended up being a backet-and-foul, with Owens converting the conventional three-point play to put the Warriors up 54-50 with only 1:06 remaining.
With the Rams having the ball in the final seconds down 54-51, White made a huge steal at the 20-second mark.
Hunter Bennett, the team’s spark plug as its sophomore point guard, came back into the game after suffering a cramp just a few minutes before, nailing two free throws to put the Warriors up 56-51 with only 16.3 seconds to play.
But Grace Christian knocked down a three-point jumper to pull within 56-54 with 9.7 seconds showing.
Bennett once again came through at the charity stripe, converting two more free throws to give CAK a two-score lead, 58-54, after being fouled before any time ran off the clock.
While Bennett ended with nine points for the game, Zachary Coffman, senior guard, nailed a three-point field goal,
Coleman’s dominance in the paint has only happened in recent games. “He was hurt the whole first part of the season,” Johnson said.
“Our plan really was to build our offense around him. We did a great job winning games without him.”
