Routing their fellow SEK League foes, the Chanute Blue Comets boys beat the Fort Scott Tigers, 69-50, in the first round of the KSHSAA 4A East Sub-State Tournament at home on Wednesday night.
“I’m feeling good. It’s nice to get a win like that,” Chanute head coach Devon Crabtree said. “These games are just the most nerve wracking as a coach. I’m proud of the guys for winning handily. The score didn’t match how the game went. So I feel good about it. The guys played well.”
With Chanute entering sub-state on a heater — the Blue Comets have won three straight games by double- digits — both squads began the postseason with a fully healthy complement.
“We knew (Dredyn) Marlow would be back for them, and he led them in scoring,” Crabtree said. “And he didn’t play much in the second quarter because of foul trouble. That’s what we wanted to do — get him out of the game as quickly as possible. Having our full crew back is huge. We’ve got a good rotation going with everybody. We’ve got guys that play different roles. It’s huge for us.”
Marlow paced all scorers with 21 points for Fort Scott in the loss.
Warrick Olson led Chanute with 17 points, with a pair of 3-pointers and six total field goals.
“Teams are trying to limit his threes so he won’t get a ton of good looks,” Crabtree said. “Hopefully he makes the good ones he gets. We need him to score in different ways and he did a good job of that. Our guys are selfless. We have a lot of guys score on different nights. They know who to get the ball to in different situations.”
Daniel Stanley, who missed the regular season finale against Parsons with a nagging ankle injury, added 16 points off the bench for Chanute.
“He’s full-go unless something starts nagging,” Crabtree said. “There’s still some black-and-blue around the ankle. So I hope it doesn’t flare up. But he’s a competitor that wants to be out there. He’ll do what he needs to do to be out on the floor.”
Crabtree dug the deepest into the bench he has all year — in addition to being fully healthy, guys like Easton Colborn, Kasen Audiss and Tucker Applegate have played the more significant minutes.
“It all depends on matchups,” Crabtree said. “Fort Scott was a great matchup for a guy like Tucker who can find ways to score in the post. Moving forward, it’s hard to say. But the more experience we can get guys, it’s better in the long run. We know we have guys on the bench we can trust.”
Up next
Chanute will host Eudora, which upset Santa Fe Trail in the first round, on Saturday in a sub-state championship. The winner will advance to the KSHSAA 4A State Tournament.
“I’ve seen them play a little bit on film,” Crabtree said. “They’ll be athletic and physical. The physicality will be a little different than what we normally see in our league. They’ll have some athletes on the floor.”
Crabtree believes the Blue Comets can handle the rough-and-tumble nature he expects Saturday’s tilt to have.
“It’s been a topic with this team. When we went through our rough patch, teams were being more physical with us,” Crabtree said. “We talked about how it was a weakness of ours. So it’s something we’ve worked on. These guys are playing well and with a lot of confidence.”
Because Eudora upset Santa Fe Trail, Chanute gets to host Saturday’s game.
“It’s huge. Our crowd did a great job tonight and hopefully we can get our full band on Saturday,” Crabtree said. “We want to get everything going. It’s great to be on your home court.”
