John Bohnenkamp for Pen City Current Sports
FORT MADISON - Fort Madison’s boys basketball team spoiled its rivals’ conference title hopes, thriving in the atmosphere of the largest home crowd of the season.
“This is huge,” senior forward Hunter Cresswell said after the Bloodhounds’ 57-41 win over Keokuk on Friday night.
Huge is a good description of the win for Fort Madison, which ruined Keokuk’s chance to grab a share of the Southeast Conference championship.
Huge is also a good description of the crowd that crammed into the Hound Dome.
“Let’s be honest — when’s the last time you’ve seen this?” coach Ryan Wilson said. “The last time I saw the gym full like this was 2015 with (MIles) Wentzien, (coach Jon) Schmitz, that era. And really, it was the ‘90s before that. But this crowd was phenomenal.”
“That might be the most packed I’ve seen this gym in my life,” Cresswell said. “Even when I was little, maybe a couple of Miles Wentzien’s games were like that. But this was up there.
“It was unreal. I’m super thankful, especially on my Senior Night, to have that kind of crowd. Last year, we weren’t very good, so I don’t blame people for not coming to our games. This year, I think we started to prove to people that we’re pretty good, and we got some bigger crowds this year.”
Fort Madison (10-7 overall, 7-3 Southeast Conference) outscored Keokuk (13-5, 7-3) 19-6 in the second quarter, closing the quarter with a 16-2 run that included a dunk by Nolan Guzman and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Julian Dear.
“Our guys just played together,” Wilson said. “Played together, moved the ball. Played with a purpose tonight, played on a mission.”
Keokuk, though, made a second-half run, getting to within 48-41 with 2:39 play on a basket inside by Jaxon Clark. But Cresswell, who left the game with an injury earlier in the half, would score the next seven points, with his 3-pointer with 1:46 to play pushing the Bloodhounds’ lead back to double digits.
“I was pretty mad (after the injury),” said Cresswell, who led the Bloodhounds with 17 points. “Coming back and getting that three, that was pretty amazing.”
The game avenged the Bloodhounds’ 56-46 loss at Keokuk on January 31.
“That game on January 31 really hit our guys, and you could see that tonight,” Wilson said. “We came ready to go.”
Clark had 16 points to lead Keokuk. But the Bloodhounds held Brenton Hoard to just nine points and Diego Garcia to eight, with six of those coming in the second half.
“Realistically, we had to take away Jaxon,” Cresswell said. “They don’t really have any other options other than Diego (Garcia) and Brenton (Hoard). Diego did work tonight, he’s the one that kept them in the game.”
“We wanted to take the big guy away,” Wilson said. “The thing is, we didn’t let some of their other players get going.”
Carson Rashid added 12 points for the Bloodhounds.
Wilson made sure to acknowledge that the crowd included members of Holy Trinity’s boys basketball team. Wilson said Crusaders coach John Hellige reached out earlier in the day to tell him his players were coming.
“We had players from Holy Trinity here cheering us on, which was really cool,” Wilson said. “Shout out to (John) Hellige for doing that. That’s really cool. That’s community stuff right there.”
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