Hawks' Watson scores career-best 34 points, 'Birds' Baumgartner surpasses 1,000-point mark

Nov 30, 2016 6:45 PM

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CARROLLTON - For no rhyme or reason, Carrollton's Jeremy Watson must love to play against the Piasa Southwestern Birds.

“I guess they just want me to score a lot,” Watson jokingly said. “I was just trying to play my game and find my teammates too, but they kept feeding me the ball, and I was feeling good.”

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Last year, in his Carrollton debut he scored 24 points and last night as a senior leader he accumulated a career-high 34 points to guide the Hawks past the Birds 72-60 on Tuesday night in Carrollton.

Carrollton goes to 1-0, and Southwestern falls to 2-3. The Hawks shot 28-44 (63 percent) from the field.

“It’s our first game of the year against a good Southwestern team,” Watson said. “They’re a bigger school, so it’s always nice to get a win against them.”

The Hawks led the whole way and started out hot as Watson hit a triple within seconds after the tip-off and Jayce Arnett drilled another to get Carrollton out to a quick 6-0 lead, which set the tone for the Hawks. Arnett would finish with 11 points and Matthew Campbell chipped in 12 for Carrollton.

“It got us going hitting those two three’s and we both knew that were on fire,” Watson said.

“We hit two threes right off the bat and when you’re at home, it’s the first game of the season and you don’t know if you’re going to be very good offensively and you hit your first two three’s, boy does that lift your spirits as a team,” Krumwiede said. “It was exactly what we needed to beat a team this good.”

The Birds battled back with offensive rebounding and got the lead down to two points at 8-6, but it was all Hawks for most of the way afterward.

The stats suggest that Carrollton ran away from Southwestern by outscoring them, but it was the Hawks defense that put everything in motion, according to Carrollton coach Jeff Krumwiede.

“I thought our defense set the tone, I thought they were good,” Krumwiede said. “We didn’t think we would hold [Baumgartner] under 11, but we tried, and that ended real quick.”

Southwestern's Colin Baumgartner

Collin Baumgartner led the Birds with 16 points and scored his 1,000th point on a free throw in the third quarter of the game, which was followed by a standing ovation by both crowds.

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Justin Bailey and Caden Hoyen each tallied 15 points.

The Hawks led 15-8 after the first quarter and outscored the Birds 18-8 in the second frame as they got stops and forced turnovers while executing set plays on offense. Watson had 18 points at the half, which was two more than Southwestern had as a team.

“They had to adjust to [Watson] and when they did Matt Campbell and Jayce Arnett were in double figures,” Krumwiede said. A lot of that is because of that 34.”

In the second half both offenses cranked up, but it was Carrollton that resumed their dominance at first as they led at one point 46-23, their biggest lead of the game. Southwestern’s shooting eventually came alive, while they failed to connect on any in the first half. The Birds cut the lead to 48-34 heading into the fourth quarter. That’s when the game got interesting.

“We handled their pressure pretty well,” Krumwiede said. “There was several passes that were this close to being turnovers and going the other way, but barely made it through that ended up being layups.

The two teams traded points for over four minutes, but Southwestern kept chipping away because of their three-pointers. They managed to sink six in the fourth quarter alone, but at the same time, the Hawks kept breaking their press and converting on layups.

Southwestern managed to get as close as nine points with under four minutes to go, but the Hawks refused to give them any more room and the Birds finally missed some shots and offensive rebounds, which is an issue the Hawks dealt with all game long.

“It’s the defensive rebounding that’s our biggest chore to work on for Friday,” Krumwiede said. “[Southwestern] didn’t shoot well, but they had so many second, third, and fourth opportunities. We were lucky to survive, and if we didn’t have the lead we would not have,” Krumwiede said.

The two Carrollton forwards, Campbell and Jacob Stendebeck, pleased Krumwiede with their defensive efforts and offensive production in their first varsity starts.

“Matt’s doing well like a senior should in a lot of categories,” Krumwiede said. I got a soft spot for Jacob. There's pressure on the young man because he was a JV player for three years and he’s thrust into it now. He performed well tonight.”

Stendeback finished with six points, Brendan Settles had five points and Jerrett Smith had four points in the contest.

Carrollton travels south to face another 2A school, the Roxana Shells on Friday night. The Hawks don’t get off to strong starts often, but they’ll be of confidence after this performance.

“It’s a tough opener, but it’s a chance to see where you are. Now we go to Roxana and see how we can do with them,” Krumwiede said. “We generally don’t get off to a flashy start because our tough competition is early in many cases. Hopefully, it makes us stronger. Playing good opponents right off the bat is going to give you an idea of what to work on.”

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