Carrollton trips up Franklin (Coop) 45-38, moves on to North Greene Class 1A Sectional
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GREENFIELD - The Carrollton Hawks and Franklin (Coop) Vipers have met each other on separate occasions this season.
The first was an opening round encounter in the Waverly Holiday Tournament as the Hawks won 54-48 and then beat the Vipers again in Franklin by one, 43-42.
Combining both games, Carrollton won by seven points.
Both teams faced off in the IHSA Class 1A Greenfield Regional championship and it was the Hawks that won again by seven points, 45-38 on Friday night.
Carrollton (23-7) never trailed.
This is the second regional championship victory for the Hawks in two seasons and the third in five.
“We’ve had an amazing run,” Carrollton head coach Jeff Krumwiede said. “I’ve been very blessed with players and situations that have enabled us to do a good job.”
Krumwiede coached at Franklin for two seasons and guided the Flashes to a regional title in his second year.
This is the ninth regional title plaque the Hawks has collected under Krumwiede.
“Two straight is pretty special,” Luke Gillingham said. “Some people go four years without even playing in one and to win two straight, it’s pretty awesome.”
Carrollton’s Cole Brannan was the overall leading scorer with 21 points and fought hard the entire game, literally playing like it’s his last.
“Senior year, got to lay it all out on the line, and that’s what I try to do every night,” Brannan said. “They’re a tough team. They played us close throughout the year and we wanted to come out and get ahead of them.”
Brannan had a clutch fourth quarter performance against Greenfield-Northwestern on Wednesday night and continued his form for most of this game.
Jeremy Watson scored nine points, all in the first half, and seven of which came in the first quarter.
“I was really feeling it that first quarter,” Watson said. It got us going.”
Ben Fromme and Lewis Wallbaum each tallied 11 points for the Vipers.
“That Fromme is one amazing offensive rebounder,” Krumwiede said. “Our big focus was keeping him off the glass and whenever we would get him to shoot and miss he’d be getting another rebound.
Franklin (Coop) ends its first season as a co-op with Franklin and Waverly at 20-11, but it was the first time any of the two towns had been to a regional championship since Franklin was in 2012.
For long stretches of the season, Carrollton has struggled to start off strong offensively, but they came to play as soon as Jerrett Smith won the opening tip-off.
“We came out and jumped on them quick,” Gillingham said.
Watson nailed a triple in the corner then Brody Howard picked Wallbaum’s pocket at mid-court and scored on a layup.
Moments later, Watson connected on another trey and then hit one of two free throws to get the lead out to 9-0.
“I thought, here we go. Tonight we’re going to be on,” Krumwiede said. “Then as fast as it was on, it turned off.”
Carrollton was forcing turnovers and Franklin (Coop) was un-forcing them too at times, but they found a way to turn it around.
After getting a couple of stops on defense, the Vipers went on a 6-0 run to stop the bleeding and trailed 11-6 after one quarter.
Despite the positive start, the Hawks felt they could’ve and should’ve possibly blown Franklin (Coop) out of the gym with the momentum they had being up 9-0.
“We just agonized through that situation where we knew we should’ve been up maybe as much as 18 or 20,” Krumwiede said. “We let them get back in the game and let them do things.”
However the Hawks would resurface.
They started the second quarter on another hot streak, this time an 11-1 run and got up to their biggest lead at 22-9.
Brannan took over the game with 10 points in the frame, including a three-pointer, and got in good position to knock down jump shots at the top of the key.
Carrollton led 23-13 at halftime, but started to cool off offensively right as Franklin (Coop) began to heat up.
After the Hawks took a 25-13 lead, the Vipers outscored the Hawks 13-5 in the quarter.
Fromme and Zach Reznicek converted on a pair of and-ones, and a three ball by Mark Talbert.
An important moment in the quarter occurred when the Hawks were presented with an opportunity to get key Franklin (Coop) point guard, Ryan Courturaux his fourth foul.
“For 20 years, when someone’s in foul trouble, I’ve tried to isolate a player and it just so happens its Jayce Arnett,” Krumwiede said. “I get him in the game and it just happens that Courturaux is guarding him with three fouls. We take a great chance and go four out and one with Jayce.”
The result was a foul on Courturaux and Arnett hit both free throws to give Carrollton a 30-22 lead, but more importantly it got Courturaux out of the game, temporarily.
He, along with Reznicek, eventually fouled out.
Carrollton led by four, 30-26 to start the final frame, but quickly got the lead back up to eight.
Franklin (Coop) never went away, but got as close as four points.
Battling foul trouble all game long, Gillingham didn’t make a field goal, but played a critical part at the end by going five of six at the charity stripe to help seal the win.
“I’ve been shooting it well all year,” Gillingham said. “They fouled me. I’ve done it before so I just have to keep calm and put them in.”
Carrollton earns a date with the Gibault Catholic Hawks (22-9) as they defeated the No. 10 Class 1A AP ranked, Metro-East Lutheran Knights 42-38 on Friday.
Last year Carrollton had to travel to Okawville, which was 92 miles south, but this year the sectional is in White Hall at North Greene High School, which is roughly 10 miles north of Carrollton.
“It’s about 10 minutes to get to North Greene,” Brannan said. “There’s going to be a huge crowd there and we’re used to that gym. Gibault, I don’t think has ever played there so we’ll try to use that as an advantage.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story
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