OLIVESBURG – It’s fair to say the Crestview boys basketball team has turned its home gym into a death trap.
Despite losing three all-Firelands Conference players to graduation from their record-breaking 2023-24 team – which finished with a 22-2 mark – the Cougars continue to roll in historic fashion at home.
On Saturday, they extended their win streak at CHS to 26 games by toppling visiting Mapleton, 63-55, in what could turn out to be a critical Firelands Conference outcome.
It’s an undefeated run at home that dates back to February 2022.
“I think when they go on the court they just expect to play physical, play tough and expect to win,” said Crestview head coach John Kurtz, whose squad is now 48-5 overall since the start of the 2022-23 campaign. “We have not been talking about (the home win streak), but our kids know about it. … And our crowd shows up for the games.”
Mapleton (6-2, 2-1 FC) looked like it had designs on ending the streak Saturday night, swapping leads with the Cougars (5-0, 2-0) six times in the first quarter.
But a dry spell of shooting – the Mounties went without a field goal for more than a seven-minute stretch (late in the first quarter to late in the second quarter) – doomed the visitors.
“We needed to hit a couple shots (during the scoring lull),” Mapleton head coach Nick Hickey said. “We had some missed opportunities because we had some good looks. There were a couple layups that we missed at the basket, a couple putbacks off offensive rebounds that could have went down for us.
“There was a gap there – and some others throughout the game – where I just thought, if that could have gone the other way, it would have been different.”
Crestview had its own shooting woes of more than six minutes without a field goal in the first half. But the hosts leaned on clutch plays from senior Justice Thompson (15 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists) and got a breakout game off the bench from junior Drew Spoerr (career-high 19 points, 9 rebounds) to carry a 27-22 lead into halftime.
“From the beginning of the year, we told Drew, ‘You’re not touching your ceiling – we’re not getting what we need to get out of you.’ And a lot of it was confidence and experience,” Kurtz said. “But you could just see that it was going to come.
“We told him there was gonna be a day when the light’s gonna click and tonight was that night. He had a really complete game tonight.”
A pair of free throws 13 seconds into the second quarter from Spoerr gave the Cougars a 15-14 lead. From there, they never trailed again.
Spoerr hit four 3-pointers in the first half to help somewhat negate another big night from standout MHS guard Scotty Hickey (game-high 28 points). It marked the fifth time in eight games this season that the senior has notched at least 28 points.
Hickey and Thompson both entered the matchup averaging better than 24 points per game, and both cleared 1,000 career points earlier this season.
Thompson was honored with a game ball before Saturday’s contest because it was the first home game for Crestview since he cleared the milestone Dec. 3 at Fredericktown. He handed the ball to his father, Norm Thompson, before giving him a quick hug.
Many consider Hickey and Thompson – two All-Ohio seniors – the frontrunners for FC Player of the Year (Thompson hopes to claim that title for the second straight season). But the outcome of Saturday’s game certainly weighed heavily within their supporting casts.
In addition to Spoerr’s huge night, Crestview junior point guard Karter Goon scored all 12 of his points in the fourth quarter.
Mapleton pulled within four points twice in the fourth (52-48 and 57-53) and Goon answered both times with a 3-pointer from the right corner to push the lead back out to seven.
He also had four assists in the win.
“He’s a tough-minded kid and we trust him with a lot of responsibility,” Kurtz said of Goon, who is also 18-of-18 from the free-throw line this season. “He’s a steady, smart kid and he did a lot of good things tonight.”
Crestview senior Tyson Ringler, meanwhile, added 11 points and seven rebounds to help the hosts come away with a 32-28 advantage on the glass, despite a game-high 13 boards from Mapleton senior post Donavan Mills.
For the Mounties, coach Hickey lauded junior Dalton Beattie for his shadow-style defense on Thompson, who was held without a 3-point bucket and had a season-low 15 points.
Mapleton senior guard Joe Foster also came up big, netting 14 of his 16 points in the second half while sinking a quartet of 3-pointers.
“I’ve loved coaching Joe since he was young,” Hickey said. “He’s not afraid of the moment, he plays really good defense and he’s a good leader out there on the floor for us.
“Him stepping up tonight, it was fun to see him do it and he’ll keep doing it the rest of the year.”
But the Mounties simply couldn’t get over the hump after their second-quarter scoring woes.
Mills got them within 57-53 on a putback with 2:50 left to play, but Goon quickly answered with one of his treys and MHS didn’t score again until 3 seconds remained.
The Mounties had the ball out of a timeout with 1:20 left, trailing 60-53, but a turnover there seemed to be the back-breaker.
Crestview now has a six-game winning streak against Mapleton and is clearly still aiming to be the alpha dog in the FC. Had it not been for a buzzer-beating loss at St. Paul last season, the Cougars would be riding a 32-game winning streak in league play.
“You could see when these boys were younger that these good years were coming,” Hickey said. “(Kurtz has) done a good job of managing that and carrying it on from what their youth coaches did for them.
“Crestview’s still the one that needs to be knocked off. Until anybody can prove otherwise, it’s them.”
Another 5-0 start is certainly nothing new for the Cougars, who started 18-0 last season and were 14-0 before their first loss two years ago.
“I just think the expectation here is to win,” Kurtz said. “It’s the kids, it’s a great culture. We scrimmaged really tough people this year and our kids didn’t really back down.”
