Dragons fall to Karns
The Clinton Dragons dropped a hard-fought game to visiting district foe Karns last Friday, falling 85-72.
Offense was the word in the first quarter as Clinton’s Evan Winchester, Chase Lockard, Daraon Jones, Luke Harrison, Trevon Hill, and DeMarcus McKamey dueled with the scoring of the Beaver’s Tee Hodge-Harper, K.J. Hawkins, and Tommy Sweat. A late surge by the Dragons pushed Clinton into a 25-19 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter featured the same fast-paced scoring action as the first. Andrew Shoopman give Clinton a rebounding boost off the bench. Karns knocked down four 3-pointers in the quarter helping them to take a 40-39 lead at halftime.
The points did not drop off in the third quarter as each team scored 18 points, sending the Beavers into the fourth quarter with a one-point lead.
Karns opened the fourth quarter on an 11-3 run to get some seperation. The Dragons pulled to within five points of the lead with four minutes left in the game but a 3-point attempt rimmed out and the Beavers got the rebound and scored. That was as close as Clinton got as Karns slowly built their lead and held on.
“They [Karns] never stopped us. We stopped ourselves. I’m going to guess we had 20-25 turnovers and 18 or 19 were unforced,” said Chris Lockard, head coach of the Dragons.
“You see where we’re heading but we had that four minute lapse [in the fourth quarter] where we went away from what we need to do and that cost us in the end,” he said.
Hodge-Harper led all scorers with 33 points while Harrison led Clinton with 18 points. Jones added 17 for the Dragons while Winchester had 11 points.
The Dragons will host the Halls Red Devils on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Karns 19 21 18 27 85
CHS 25 14 18 15 72
Karns — Tee Hodge-Harper (33), Tommy Sweat (14), K.J. Hawkins (12), Thomas Harper (7), Mack Vance (7), Jordan Gillespie (5), Travon Jackson (4), Morgan Jones (3)
CHS — Luke Harrison (18), Daraon Jones (17), Evan Winchester (11), Trevon Hill (9), DeMarcus McKamey (5), Andrew Shoopman (4)