INDEPENDENCE — Playing free basketball for the second time in three games, the Chanute Blue Comets got off the schneid on Friday night with a 57-54 win in SEK League boys hoops action.
“It still felt similar to our other games where we’re so close,” Chanute head coach Devon Crabtree said. “We needed just a few possessions to go our way and our season is looking different. We finally got those to go our way on Friday. We’re a good team. But we’ve got to figure out how to score in the halfcourt a little better. I’m glad we were able to finish the game, finally.”
Chanute’s win snapped a three-game losing streak since Christmas.
“It felt great to get back in the win column,” Crabtree said. “It’d been a long time since we lost three games in a row. Hopefully this win jumpstarts us. The league is much better and it’s hard to win road games. We want the chance to get these teams back at home and that’ll make a difference.”
Kobe Patterson led Chanute with 17 points, 15 coming off five 3-pointers.
“It started with our guys finding him in the right situations,” Crabtree said. “He made a few shots in some big moments. He’s playing with a lot of confidence and he got it going. We need him to continue that. It adds a dynamic to our team that makes us hard to guard.”
Kellen Lanning led Independence with a dozen points.
“A lot of what we did is we made them guard and we ran our offense well,” Crabtree said. “They were tired when the game got into overtime. We went to our bench more and we were fresher, late. We held Javen (Colbert) to eight points and that was a group effort. We played some zone and that gave them some problems. All the small things added up.”
Up next
Chanute, now 6-4 overall, hosts the Ralph Miller Classic. The Blue Comets will play Augusta on Thursday in the first round.
“It’s going to be a tough challenge but a fun one,” Crabtree said. “It’ll be nice to play and scout some teams outside of our league. We’ve got a lot of 5A schools and 4As in the tournament. I hope we can win some games.”
