SYCAMORE — With three league losses, Colonel Crawford’s season was hanging in the balance if the Eagles had any hope of a Northern 10 Athletic Conference title.

For Mohawk, stakes were maintaining an undefeated season and the No. 10 ranking in Division IV.

The Eagles’ title aspirations still have a pulse. The visitors jumped out to a nine-point first-quarter lead withstood a late Warriors’ charge to come away with a 53-43 N10 victory. It was the ninth straight win for Colonel Crawford.

“I’m proud of our group, to go into a hostile environment and get a 10-point win,” Colonel Crawford coach David Sheldon said. “We called it a business trip.”

The Eagles went on an 8-0 run over a two-minute span of the first quarter to build a 14-5 lead by period’s end. Mohawk (12-1, 8-1 N10) helped by hitting just 2 of 13 shots in the first eight minutes.

“We had good shots, we weren’t making them,” Mohawk coach Paul Dunn said. “And then, instead of finding a way to get better shots, we just kept shooting the same shots. We kind of fell into a happy place of doing the wrong things.”

True enough, the Warriors hit just three of 14 shots in the second period while Colonel Crawford (11-3, 7-3) was good on five of eight shots attempts, paving the way for a 29-13 Eagles’ advantage at halftime. It was a hole from which Mohawk could not extricate itself.

“I thought our defensive effort was very good,” Sheldon said. “I tell you what we did is limited them to one shot the first half. When they were missing, we were able to get out and get some transition hoops.”

The defensive lockdown resulted in the Eagles’ holding Zach Hayman, second in the N10 in scoring at 20.7 ppg., to two points in the first half.

“They had a great plan. They packed in the paint and they wanted to prevent Zach and our guards from getting to the basket,” Dunn said. “And literally, we just didn’t make shots.”

The Warriors trimmed the lead to 29-20 with a7-0 run to start the third quarter but Colonel Crawford was able to stretch it back to 39-24 after three.

Mohawk chipped away again in the fourth period and got within six, with 2:02 left in the game and came as close a five, 48-43, with 31 seconds left.

“We knew they were going to make runs, that’s a good team,” Sheldon said. “We tried to use timeouts to sort of stop those, at times. I thought we answered end of third, beginning of the fourth and sort of put it away. Even though they mad shots late, it was never in doubt.”

Jordan Fenner led Colonel Crawford with 17 points and eight rebounds. Gavin Feichtner finished with 12 points.

Hayman finished with 14 points and Austin Tusing had nine for Mohawk. Keith Jenkins and Chris Klopp had eight rebounds each.

Even with the loss, the Warriors maintain a one-game lead over Upper Sandusky and Carey and two over Colonel Crawford.

“This is a very big part of the season right now for us,” Dunn said. “We’re either going to go up or we’re going to go down and crash and burn. So, we’ve got to figure out how to go back up.

“It would be awesome to go 22-0 but every coach also thinks his team needs a gut punch at one point,” Dunn added. “I think this was the gut punch we need, we probably deserve. And I think, hopefully, the kids will respond from it.”

“We talked about, “Hey, let’s make a statement,’” Sheldon said. “That’s the No. 10 ranked team in the state of Ohio. They’re very good, very well-coached and a special group of seniors. And to go on the road and win by 10, I just told our guys we’re starting to turn into something.”

Mohawk gained a split on the night with a 40-32 victory in the junior varsity game. Mason McKibben had a game-high 15 points in a losing cause for Colonel Crawford and Brock Ritzhaupt added nine. Trey Combs had 12 and Tyler Hayman finished with 10 for the Warriors.

Box score

Colonel Crawford     15      9       9     14 — 47

Mohawk                        7    10       6        6 — 29

Stats

Colonel Crawford (11-3, 7-3 N10): Shots 20-40; 3-pt shots 1-8 (Gavin Feichtner); Free throws 12-21; Rebounds 35 (Jordan Fenner 8); Turnovers 11. Scoring: Reis Walker 2 1 5, Jordan Fenner 5 7 17, Zye Shipman 2 1 7, Mason Studer 4 0 8, Gavin Feichtner 4 3 12, Chase Walker 2 0 4.

Mohawk (12-1, 8-1 N10): Shots 18-62; 3-pt. shots 5-24 (Austin Tusing 3, Hunter Gottfried 2); Free throws 2-7; Rebounds 35 (Chris Klopp 8, Keith Jenkins 8); Turnovers 8. Scoring: Keith Jenkins 3 0 6, Austin Tusing 3 0 9, Zach Hayman 7 0 14, Hunter Gottfried 3 0 8, Chris Klopp 2 2 6.

JV: Mohawk 40-32.