NORTH ROBINSON — According to Colonel Crawford coach David Sheldon, Gavin Feichtner has been averaging about 16 points and nine rebounds per game.
The 6-foot-4 junior came into his own Friday night.
Feichtner tossed in 26 points, Jordan Fenner added 16 and Chase Walker chipped in with 11, as the Eagles dropped Ridgedale, 71-48.
With the win, the Eagles improved to 7-3 overall, 4-3 in the Northern 10, while the Rockets fell to 6-3 overall, 3-3 in the N10.
Sheldon said that Feichtner is a difficult player to defend.
“The tough thing about Gavin is he can go inside, and he can step out and shoot the three,” Sheldon said. “He’s a load. He’s a good cover. When we get someone small on him, we can post him up, when he has someone big on him, we can take him away from the basket and he can shoot it.
“(Feichtner) did a very good job finishing tonight,” Sheldon said. “We knew we had a size advantage and we wanted to feed him the ball. Another thing he does well is when they started doubling, he made the extra pass.”
Feichtner was particularly strong in the first half, scoring 16 points in the first two periods as the Eagles held a 38-25 lead at the break.
“Defensively, we got off to a good start,” Sheldon added. “We got a big lead and they made a run at us. (Ridgedale) is a very good basketball team; they’re averaging about 60 points a game. They play very fast and I thought defensively we did a good job holding them to 48 tonight.”
The Rockets trimmed the lead to nine late in the second period, but never came within 10 points the rest of the way.
“We worked all week on fronting the post and our guys refused to do it,” Ridgedale coach Nathon Loney said. “When you are 5-10 or 6-foot and you don’t front 6-5 guys you’re going to get beat every night. I don’t care who you play or how tough you are or strong you are, you’re going to get beat every night.”
Conner Lust led the Rockets with 16 points, Ashton Bigler dropped in 12 and Clayton Lust added 11.
Loney said that his team did a decent job of handling the basketball.
“For as fast as we play, I think we’re averaging 11 turnovers a game right now,” Loney said. “We get up and down the floor pretty quick and we get a lot of possessions a game. So, 12 turnovers isn’t bad.
“But when we don’t convert at the other end, when we get a stop at this end and don’t convert at the other end, it doesn’t mean anything,” he added.
The Eagles finished the night hitting 28 of 50 shots for 56 percent, while Ridgedale was 18 of 44.
“Our posts did a good job making the extra pass,” Sheldon said. “We knew they were going to double, and we made passes for layups and 3s all night long.”
Sheldon added that the Rockets are a quality basketball team.
“(Ridgedale) is doing a good job, they play hard and it’s a credit to our kids that we played well,” Sheldon said. “We had good balance tonight scoring. The last three games our offense has really taken off. Guys are finding what they can do and finding each other and making the extra pass.”