Bulldogs cruise to 76-48 home court win over Lowell in Boys Basketball

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
02-20-2011

LOWELL (48) Danny DeBoer 9-1-20, Austin Richie 3-2-8, David Stang 2-0-4, Kyle Richwalski 1-2-4, Jason Parker 2-0-4, Nick Kijurna 2-2-6, Austin Magley 0-0-0, Clark Mikesell 0-0-0, Brandon Bullitt 0-2-2, Zack Van Hook 0-00. Bruno Andre 0-0-0. TOTALS: 19 (9-15) 48.

CROWN POINT (76) Evan Langbehn 3-2-8, Dejan Stefanovic 2-0-5, Jared Smoot 3-5-11, Sean Crary 7-6-21, Tommy Bardeson 3-2-9, Michael Albrecht 5-6-16, Billy Brown 1-0-2, Braxton Rice 0-0-0, Zak Bostian 0-2-2, Ronnie Plesac 0-2-2. TOTALS: 24 (23-29) 76.

FREE THROWS: LOWELL (9-15, 60%) DeBoer 1-3, Richie 2-2, Richwalski 2-4, Kijurna 2-4, Bullitt 2-2. CROWN POINT (23-29, 79.3%) Smoot 5-6, Langbehn 2-2, Crary 6-7, Albrecht 6-10, Bardeson 2-2, Bostian 2-2.

REBOUNDS: LOWELL (16) Kijurna 9, Richie 3, Richwalski 2, Stang; CROWN POINT (23) Langbehn 9, Smoot 6, Stefanovic 4, Albrecht 3, Rice.

FOULED OUT: LOWELL (2) Kyle Richwalski (4th Q) 4:26 left; Austin Richie (4th Q) 2:51 left.

3-GOALS: LOWELL (1) Danny DeBoer; CROWN POINT (5) Sean Crary 2, Dejan Stefanovic, Michael Albrecht, Tommy Bardeson.

Lowell_at_CP-Boys_statistics_02-19-2011.pdf

CP-Boys_1st_19-games_Season_Stats_02-21-11.pdf

CROWN POINT, IN (02-19-2011) This most certainly wasn't the game I expected to see. A crowd of about 1,500 in the big Crown Point gym on a Saturday night may have expected a shootout between senior scoring stars Austin Richie of Lowell and Michael (Spike) Albrecht of Crown Point. That just did not happen.

Crown Point's defense kept the pace slow for the most part and dominated for the most part, taking down Lowell 76-48 in the annual match up between the two south Lake County schools.

Richie, Northwest Indiana's leading scorer (34 points a game) was held to just eight. Albrecht, the top scorer in the Duneland Athletic Conference (22 per game) was limited to five field goals and just 16 points. But CP's defense, based on 6-foot-10 center Jared Smoot, never let the Red Devils (9-8) ignite any scoring runs and slowly pulled away.

"There were two approaches we could have taken," said CP coach Clint Swan. "Have five guys stopping him. Or just go about your business. As late as last night, it was going to be 5-on-1. But we just decided to play one on one. Not that everybody didn't know where he was. We had special rules for him. You have to have special rules for a player like Richie. And he missed some shots he usually makes."

It appeared that senior Sean Crary guarded Richie, the 6-foot-2 guard who scored 50 on Feb. 10 against Boone Grove, for much of the first half and Albrecht took him in the second half. Red Devil sophomore guard Danny DeBoer scored 20, but Richie had just eight, all in the first half.

"Lowell goes as Austin Riche goes," admitted Nate Richie, Austin's head coach and his older brother. "You got to give Crown Point credit. They played good defense."

Lowell led 7-6 when CP (16-3) Albrecht and Crary led a 12-2 run. Crary, a 5-foot-11 guard, scored 10 of his game-high 21 points in the first period while Albrecht had three first quarter assists. Lowell stayed in the game through halftime as Richie and DeBoer combined for 20 first half points.

In the third quarter, the Bulldogs picked up the pace of the game and Lowell surprisingly, could not keep up.

"That's how we play," said coach Richie afterwards. "Usually we are the up-tempo team. We're supposed to be sprinting up the floor and we're not sprinting up floor. I don't know why."

Crown Point got lots of defense and all-court hustle from 6-foot-3 senior Evan Langbehn and a peak level game from Crary, who seems to have unlimited energy.

"He's got a high motor," agreed Swan. "And he had 23 on Thursday against Portage. I know he wants to play in college and he's been playing well lately. We're good defensively because we've worked very hard at it and also because of number 24 (center Jared Smoot). He covers up a lot of our mistakes."

Though Crown Point only has one game to play against last place Chesterton (1-17), Swan said he does not want his team to look beyond that game, the final home date for his five seniors.

"That's a bad habit to get into," he said of looking ahead. "We've got to concentrate on taking each game as it comes."

NOTES: Crown Point's Michael Albrecht didn't want a big deal made out of him scoring his 1,000th point (on a three-point basket) in the first quarter of Saturday night win over Lowell.

"I didn't want the game stopped," he said afterwards. "I just wanted to get it out of the way so we could win."

No one could immediately come up with another Northwest Indiana family where two brothers scored 1000 points in Indiana basketball.

State-wide, Luke (2005-1727 points) Tyler (2009-1,624 points) and Cody (2011-1350 and counting) of downstate Washington are the last to do it.

"I don't know. It's pretty cool," said Albrecht, who will be honored at CP's final home game this Friday. "The Zellers? They're big time."

The four Humes brothers of Madison and the three Graves brothers of White River Valley all scored 1,000 points. There are no more Albrecht brothers (oldest brother Chachi scored about 500 points in two CP varsity seasons) but sister Hannah Albrecht is an up-and- coming grade school prospect for the Lady Bulldogs.

Lowell was unhappy that 6-foot-9 center Kyle Richwalski again spent most of the game Saturday on the bench in foul trouble. Richwalski, a junior who has improved significantly this year, has been in foul trouble in most games even though he is not as physical a player as his coaches would like.

"I don't know what's going on there," said Nate Richie. "He gets fouls for things other guys don't get called for. And we are in trouble when he's on the bench."

How many 1,000-point scorers have their been in Crown Point high school history? That's not an easy question.

"I haven't looked it up but I think there's about five," said coach Clint Swan. "But that's five in over 100 years of Crown Point basketball."

Lowell's Austin Richie, who was not in Lowell during his freshman season, unofficially has 1,418 points so he can pass the 1,500-point mark if he averages 28 points per game over the final three games.

Crown Point, which will finish with 17 regular season wins if they defeat Chesterton this Friday, has just two 20-win seasons on record. They were 21-3 in 1969 and 20-4 in 1964.

Lowell coach Nate Richie was concerned about a heavy final week schedule that sees Lowell play games with Wheeler (Tuesday), Andrean (Thursday) and Morton (Friday).

"Three games in the final week is ridiculous," Richie said, acknowledging that the Andrean game was a makeup game snowed out by bad weather last month.

"We do need a good draw."

 
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Revised: March 07, 2011 .