Knights top NK, ready for the Bulldogs

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

CONVOY — Kalen Etzler came off the bench to score 25 points, including three thunderous dunks, and No. 2 Crestview rolled past New Knoxville 71-32 on Saturday.

The 6-8 sophomore came off the bench because head coach Jeremy Best opted to start Drew Kline and four senior reserves (Colton Lautzenheiser, Brant Richardson, Brock Stauffer and Kole Small) in the next to last home game of the season.

“We have a lot of selfless guys and we have eight seniors, so we started four tonight and a couple of those have never started a game in their careers,” Best explained. “That was nice to be able to do that and I know our other guys that start and play the majority of minutes respect that, and I think that says who we are.”

“That meant a lot to me, that our guys were totally into that when we talked about starting them tonight and giving them an opportunity to come out and hear their names announced in front of our community,” Best added.

Richardson and Lautzenheiser pumped in Crestview’s first seven points of the game, then Etzler came in scored the next eight points, including a pair of treys to give the Knights a 15-9 lead at the end of the quarter.

Crestview (20-1, 6-1 NWC) used two large scoring runs – 9-3 and 12-2 – to pull away in the second quarter. Javin Etzler, who finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, scored nine points in the period and Lautzenheiser’s late triple put the Knights up 42-17 at halftime. Lautzenheiser finished with eight points.

The third quarter was all Crestview, as the Knights outscored the Rangers 22-3, including three consecutive crowd pleasing slam dunks in 40 seconds by Kalen Etzler.

“Obviously that ignited us and got us energized,” Best said. “It’s just one of those things that’s an exciting play in basketball.”

New Knoxville’s only points of the quarter back on a three pointer by Patrick Covert at the 6:30 mark that made it 44-20. Including the dunks, the Knights scored the remaining 20 points of the period, including six by Javin Etzler and four more by Richardson, who finished with 10.

Best cleared his entire bench during the fourth quarter and sophomore Brody Brecht accounted for five of Crestview’s seven points in the period.

While pleased with his team’s effort, Best also gave credit to the struggling Rangers (3-18), who were led in scoring by Covert and Jared Osborne’s seven points.

“While watching them and preparing for them, they play with a great sense of purpose and that’s hard to do when you’re young and when you’re struggling to put the pieces together from a win standpoint,” Best said. “However, I thought our guys did a really good job of staying pretty focused, understanding the purpose of what we’re trying to do.”

“We got a lot of guys in and continued to get good minutes out of Colton, Carson (Kreischer) and Brant and other guys off the bench. That’s huge for us, it’s great to see and it makes us much more diverse and harder to prepare for.”

Crestview will finish the regular season at home on Friday against Northwest Conference leader Columbus Grove (16-4, 7-0 NWC). A win by the Knights would result in a co-championship by the two schools.

“They’re young but very talented,” Best said of the Bulldogs. “They’re not up and coming in the conference, they’re here now and their undefeated in the league for a reason.”

Scoring summary

Crestview 15 22 27 7 – 71
Rangers 9 8 3 12 – 32

Crestview: Kalen Etzler 9-3-25; Wade Sheets 2-2-6; Javin Etzler 6-2-15; Colton Lautzenheiser 3-0-8; Kaden Short 0-2-2; Brant Richardson 5-0-10; Brody Brecht 2-1-5
New Knoxville: Max Henschen 1-0-3; Jared Osborne 3-1-7; Patrick Covert 3-0-7; Jakob Rollins 1-0-3; Sammy Anspach 2-1-6; Andrew Poppe 2-2-6

JV: Crestview 40-27