By Steve Fields
CLAY CITY — The Clay City Eels chased the White River Valley Wolverines out of the gym Saturday night. But they never caught them.
White River Valley built leads of 14 and 18 points twice in the first and second halves before holding on for a 66-59 Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference victory.
WRV built a 35-20 lead in the second quarter, but Clay City closed to within eight points in the third. The Wolverines were up 58-40 in the fourth quarter, turned the game over to the reserves, but had to send the starters back into the contest when Clay City closed battled back to within seven in the final minute.
“That’s something we’ve talked about the last couple of weeks, playing a complete game and making sure we finish them out,” Clay City coach Vance Edmondson said.
The Class A 11th-ranked Wolverines (11-4) were led by center Cole Goodman with 15 points and six rebounds and guard Jared Shelton with 13 points.
Forward Logan Higgins paced Clay City’s homecoming effort with a double-double of 21 points and 12 rebounds, while guard Ben Denker netted 17 points.
WRV shot a sizzling 58 percent (23-39) for the game by consistently getting the ball inside, or scoring lay ups. Clay City shot 46 percent (23-50) from the floor.
“With the style we play, with our trapping and us trying to be aggressive on the defensive end we’re going to give up some [layups]. But we’ve got to take the good with the bad. We forced them into doing some bad things tonight and forced some turnovers and sometimes we didn’t capitalize on them,” Edmondson said.
WRV closed the first quarter with an 8-2 run to lead 18-12 going into the second quarter. Scoring nearly all over their points inside, the Wolverines hit 14-22 shots en route to a 37-23 halftime lead.
Clay City’s Ben Denker put back a rebound and hit a three to draw the Eels within eight, 41-33, midway through the third period. But two buckets from the 6-5 Goodman and five points from Jared Shelton gave WRV a 52-37 cushion going into the fourth quarter.
WRV extended its lead to 58-40 in the first 3:30 of the fourth quarter and the game appeared to be over. But it wasn’t over for Clay City’s Higgins.
Higgins scored 11 points in the final period. With a minute to play Higgins’ basket got the Eels within seven, 62-55 and forced the Wolverines to hit free throws in the closing seconds for the win.
White River Valley 66
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Dyer 1-3 0-0 1-2 1 0 0 3
McNeal 3-7 0-0 2-3 5 1 2 8
Goodman 6-8 0-0 3-4 6 0 3 15
Hostetter 3-4 1-2 2-2 0 2 2 9
Shelton 4-6 1-1 4-4 4 0 2 13
Resler 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 2 0
Hogue 3-5 0-0 2-4 3 0 1 8
Hill 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 1 0
Dove 1-2 0-0 1-2 2 1 1 3
Sargent 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Ashcraft 0-0 0-0 2-2 0 0 0 2
Sullivan 1-3 0-1 1-5 1 1 0 3
Roudebush 1-1 0-0 0-3 6 0 2 2
Totals 23-39 2-4 18-32 29 5 16 66
Clay City 59
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Newton 1-8 1-5 0-0 4 0 3 3
Higgins 9-13 1-2 2-7 12 1 4 21
Bridgewater 1-7 0-2 1-2 1 1 5 3
Tiefel 2-6 0-3 2-2 1 1 2 6
Denker 6-9 3-6 2-2 6 0 1 17
Evans 1-4 0-1 1-4 1 1 0 3
Decker 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 0 3 0
Johnson 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0
Jenkins 1-1 1-1 0-0 0 0 1 3
Moore 1-1 1-1 0-0 2 1 2 3
Totals 22-50 7-21 8-17 31* 5 22 59
White River Valley 18 19 15 14 — 66
Clay City 12 11 14 22 — 59
FG pct. — WRV .589, CC .440. 3-pt. Pct. — WRV .500, CC .333. FT Pct. — WRV .562, CC .470. (*)Includes team Rebounds — CC3. Turnovers — WRV 12, CC 15.
JV — White River Valley won 35-28.
Next — On Friday night, Clay City (3-12, 2-3 in SWIAC) will host Shakamak and WRV (11-4, 3-1 in SWIAC) travels to Eastern Greene.
