Cedar Creek’s season ends at Northwood-Lena
Photo by Darrell James
Cedar Creek’s Carter Hill floats in the lane for a bucket in a playoff game last week against Westminster Christian. Creek was eliminated by Northwood-Lena Monday.
The Cedar Creek Cougars’ season ended at the hands of No. 1 Northwood-Lena Monday, losing 83-50 in in the Division IV select regional round.
The No. 16 seeded Cougars couldn’t match the offensive firepower of Northwood, as the Gators nailed six three-pointers in the first quarter alone to take a 36-14 lead after the first.
By halftime, the game got out of reach as Northwood led 63-27.
The Gators finished with two 20-point scorers on their way to the regional round victory, while Creek was led by Connor Norris and Jack Echols scoring 12 points each in their final game as Cougars.
“They shot the ball really well the entire game and got out to a really quick start,” Cedar Creek head coach Lane Waldron said of the game. “I thought we did a pretty good job with giving effort and our gameplan. We covered them and had hands in their face, but it didn’t matter.”
The season may have ended sooner than Waldron was hoping for, but nothing will take away how the firstyear head coach feels about what his team left on the floor Monday night and throughout his first year at the helm.
“I think it was a successful season,” Waldron said. “We had some ups and downs but the kids, they enjoyed playing and you can’t ask for anything more than that. I thought we got off to a slow start. It took us a while to gel, but we gradually got better as the season went on and the kids even when we would struggle, the next days the kids were always upbeat and ready to work some more.”
The Cougars finish the 2022-23 season with a 13-14 overall record and snapped a two-year skid of losing in the first round of the playoffs along the way.
Creek said goodbye to its starting five and senior class in Norris, Echols, Carter Hill, Brian Osborne, and Davis Walsworth Monday and it’s not lost on Waldron how much the group contributed this season.
“We talked a little bit to them at the beginning of the season about them being the start of the program being built,” Waldron said. “I told them they probably won’t be around to see it but the guys behind them will more than they will. Sometimes that’s a sacrifice and they bought
