CRESTLINE — Elgin has always relied on its defense, according to coach Bill Clem.

“Defense has always been the cornerstone of our program,” Clem said. “We always start there and kinda go from there. Crestline is a good offensive team, they have some guys that can score, so it was good holding them to 38.”

The Comets absolutely shut the Bulldogs down for three periods, holding them to just 22 points en route to a 54-38 win Saturday night.

With the win, Elgin improved to 9-3, while Crestline fell to 6-6.

The Bulldogs made just nine of 35 shots for the first three periods. Crestline was without leading scorer Lucas Cochran for most of the game with foul trouble. For the game, the Bulldogs made just 15 of 46 shots from the floor.

“I thought we played defense really well,” Clem said. “Last night we held a team to 37 points and to hold a team to 38 tonight, is a pretty good weekend.”

Crestline coach Tyler Sanders was disappointed in the way his kids played on both ends of the floor.

“We just didn’t shoot the ball well,” Sanders said. “You’ll see five or six 3s on the game and they were all in meaningless minutes when the game was out of hand. It’s nice to see the ball go in the hoop, but it’s gotta happen in the first half. We can’t have 21 or 22 points going into the fourth quarter and feel good about where we’re at.”

Neither team shot the ball well in the first half. Crestline was just six of 28 in the first two periods to just eight for 25 for Elgin.

The Comets held a 10-7 lead after the first quarter and 21-15 at the break.

“We missed some easy shots, and, when we missed the easy shots, it affected our mentality in shooting 3s,” Clem said. “In the second half, we got going a little bit. We got some things to go for us.”

The Comets also lost Isaac Dillon and post Nate Clem with foul trouble in the first half, but both players made big contributions in the second half.

“We had some foul trouble in the first half and had some guys sitting on the bench, so to have Isaac and Nate back in the game in the third quarter was huge,” Clem said.

“Also in the first half, when we had some foul trouble, Tommy (Smith) came off the bench and Breck (Dugan) off the bench played great.”

The third quarter was the difference in the game. The Comets held the Bulldogs to just one point in the first four minutes of the period, increasing their lead to 31-16. Elgin got three 3s in the final minutes of the period to take a 39-22 lead into the final frame.

Elgin led by as many as 25, 49-24, on a Dillon 3.

Crestline’s R.J. Johnston hit three 3s and scored 13 points in the fourth period. He led all scorers with 25 points, but the remainder of the Crestline team scored just 13 points.

Hamilton Sager paced Elgin with 14 points and Carson Rife added 13.

Sanders felt his team’s effort wasn’t up to par, especially defensively.

“It was pretty bad,” Sanders said of his team’s defensive intensity. “Look at the scoreboard and you would say, ‘Oh you didn’t give up that many points,’ but outside of last night when they scored 75 points, Elgin doesn’t score more than the high 40s, low 50s.

“But we just got destroyed over and over again on seals, not containing the gap. It was really just poor effort on our kids’ part,” Sanders added.

Crestline was coming off a tough 52-46 loss the previous night at Lucas, but Sanders said that his team shouldn’t have been down for the Comets.

“I can’t make any excuses for that,” Sanders said. “We had a back-to-back, they had a back-to-back. They came out hungry, ready to win and we did not.”

Elgin also won the junior varsity game, 38-29. Jake Bruce led the Bulldogs with nine points.

Box score

Elgin           10    11    18    15 — 54

Crestline      7      8       7    16 — 38

Stats

Elgin: (9-3) Shots 21-50; 3-pt shots 8 (Carson Rife 3, Harrison Sager 2, Isaac Dillon 2, Breckin Dugan); Free throws 5-7; Rebounds 20; Turnovers 9. Scoring: Harrison Sager 5 2 14, Stephen Castillo 1 1 3, Breck Dugan 1 0 3, Isaac Dillon 3 0 7, Carson Rife 5 0 13, Tommy Smith 2 2 6, Nate Grim 4 0 8.

Crestline: (6-6): Shots 15-46; 3-pt. shots 5 (R.J. Johnson 3, Trevor Shade, Josh Hall); Free throws 3-6; Rebounds 28; Turnovers 17. Scoring: R.J. Johnson 10 2 25, Trevor Shade 1 0 3, Josh Hall 2 0 5, Lucas Cochran 2 1 5.

JV: Elgin 38-29.