BASCOM — Once again, the Wynford Royals relied on star Josh Crall to keep his team in the game, but this time it was Crestview’s Evan Hamilton that stole the show.

Crall led all scorers with 34 points, including 17 after the first three periods, but Hamilton knocked down 19, including a huge 3-point shot that sent the game into overtime as the Cougars edged the Royals, 55-54, in double overtime in the Division III sectional semifinal at Hopewell-Loudon High School.

Hamilton, a sophomore, scored six points in the two overtime periods, including all three in the second overtime as the Cougars got the win.

“Evan is someone we ask a lot out of,” Crestview coach David Pellerite said. “He has a lot on his shoulders, and he does a good job of getting us into our offense and he did a great job in the second half of attacking and putting pressure on their defense and getting guys involved on the offensive end.

“He got the open look and he was able to knock it down and he put us in good position,” Pellerite said.

Crall kept the Royals in the game as expected. The Royals junior scored 11 of the team’s 13 points in the extra frames, and he had the last two chances to win the game in the second overtime.

Starting the second overtime, Hamilton knocked down three free throws to give the Cougars a 55-52 lead with 1:34 left.

After two possession changes, the Royals had one final chance to win with 24 seconds left.

Crall took possession of the ball between the circles and quickly took the ball to the basket but he was just as quickly defended by two Crestview players and his layup chance missed. He got the rebound and put it back up, but the ball didn’t drop.

“We were trying to keep the ball out of the hands of probably the best player in our district,” Pellerite said of Crall. “He’s really good and he was able to get it back and attack the hoop and I thought we did a good job of walling him up and making him take a really tough layup and did a good job of rebounding the basketball.”

Wynford coach Steve Mohr said that the same malady that has plagued his team all season showed up again.

“We had opportunities to extend our lead and we didn’t take advantage of those opportunities,” Mohr said. “We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well again. But we just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that we had.”

The Royals led almost the entire game, leading by as many as nine in the first period and again in the third period. Crestview finally led in the game when Hamilton hit the three with one minute left, putting Crestview up, 41-39. But Crall hit two free throws with 38.1 seconds left to send the game into the first extra session.

Each team scored 11 points in the first overtime to send the game to the dramatic second extra three-minute period.

“A couple of times we had the lead at eight or nine and all we needed was a couple of stops in each of those situations and that’s part of learning how to win,” Mohr said. “We just haven’t learned how to win. I just think there were so many times this year when we had opportunities to do that and we just didn’t get it done. We’ll just have to look at what we can do to correct that and take it into next season.”

Pellerite was happy with the effort from his team.

“We just kept talking about going next play and the fact that playoff games happen, and teams get runs and I think we did a good job of sticking together and getting good shots and had a lot of guys step up in big moments for us,” Pellerite said.

Isaac Sterritt backed Crall with nine points, all in the first half.

“I was pleased with our defense,” Mohr said. “We had a couple of breakdowns, but we held them to 20 points in a half. Anytime you can hold a team to 20 points in a half you’ve done the job defensively.

“We didn’t shoot real well, and we didn’t recognize some situations. We didn’t recognize some situations where we could have gotten even a better scoring situation.”

Box score

Crestview     8    12     11     10    11    3 — 55

Wynford        17      8      8       8    11    2 — 54

Stats

Crestview (5-18): Shots 21-50; 3-pt. shots 1 (Evan Hamilton); Free throws 12-18; Rebounds 34; Turnovers 16. Scoring: Jacob Greer 1 1 3, Brevin King 3 2 8, Kolton Kissel 1 0 2, Kameron Goon 3 1 7, Nick Ritchey 8 0 16, Evan Hamilton 5 8 19.

Wynford (5-18): Shots 19-53; 3-pt. shots 3 (Isaac Sterrett 3); Free throws13-19; Rebounds 26; Turnovers 15. Scoring: Matt McBride 1 0 2, Gunnar Coffman 0 1 1, Isaac Sterrett 3 0 9, Khylee Davis 1 0 2, Josh Crall 11 12 34, Caleb Rausch 1 0 2, Gavin Leffler 1 0 2, Gavin Burris 1 0 2.