Boys basketball: Keystone rolls over Columbia to stay undefeated, but sees plenty of room for improvement

LAGRANGE — Keystone may have gotten the win, but it's hungry for more. Freshman Colt Cowling led the Wildcats with 25 points while sophomore Liam Goran piled up six of the team's 13 steals and Keystone beat Columbia 60-40 in Lorain County League action Friday night. But despite the strong defense, Keystone lost the turnover battle 23-17. "I thought we came into the game really prepared," Cowling said. "Obviously we turned the ball over a little too much and we've got to work on that. We've got a big challenge (today) against Norwalk. That will be a good test for us. Tonight was a good win, but we have stuff we need to improve on. We can always improve our defense and cut down on the turnovers. But I thought we shared the ball amazing tonight. It was good, but we can work on those couple of things." Keystone (8-0, 5-0 LCL) jumpstarted the night with a big first quarter, fueled by 13 unanswered points thanks to its defense. Cowling finished the quarter with 10 points, many of which came off steals. The Wildcats combined to score eight points off steals while holding the Raiders to only two field goals. Columbia (3-3, 2-3) was playing without 6-foot-6 center Justin Smith, who injured his ankle against during a 61-49 loss to Firelands on Tuesday. Columbia coach Josh Scharf said Smith is taking it day by day and will continue to be reevaluated. "They sped us up," Scharf said. "We spent a lot of time in practice working on it because we knew they were going to throw it at us. So the first half we just got sped up. We weren't creating the gaps and the space that we needed to. But after the break we settled down and cleaned things up." In the second quarter, Cowling got hot from 3-point range, connecting on all three of his attempts. He shot 10-of-11 with 23 points by halftime and opened the third with an alley-oop dunk from Goran. Zach Shackelford also had a strong defensive night with four steals and a block to go with 10 points, two of which came during a 10-0 run to start the second half. The Wildcats also outrebounded Columbia, 40-17, with Emory Fedor putting up 12 points and 11 rebounds, six of them leading to second-chance opportunities. "He's playing with such a great motor right now," Keystone coach Jeff Holzhauer said of Fedor. "He did an outstanding job. We're playing hard, we just need to play better. We outrebounded them by about 25, that's because our kids were playing hard. We just have to play smart." Carter Duley led the Raiders with 11 points while tying Jacob Reust for the team high in rebounds with five. Logan Menge also hit double figures with 10 and secured four of the team's eight steals. Columbia had its chances to get back into the game, especially after cutting down the turnovers. After committing 10 in the first quarter, it only committed seven the rest of the way. But it couldn't get shots to fall, shooting just 25 percent from the field and 6-of-29 from 3-point range — four of those threes coming in the fourth quarter with the game well in hand. "I want to commend our guys for executing our game plan flawlessly," Scharf said. "There were two guys we were focused on. To hold Colt and Liam combined to 29 points, if you told me that before the game, I'd say we were going to win. We just didn't make shots. If we make some of those shots, it's a totally different ballgame." Contact Chris Sweeney at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X. Keystone 60, Columbia 40 COLUMBIA (40): Logan Menge 3-2-10, Carter Duley 3-4-11, Dylan Fisher 1-0-2, Jacob Reust 0-0-0, Carter Hess 3-2-10, Jack Washburn 3-0-7, Graham Ross 0-0-0, Ambrose Beach 0-0-0, Vaughn Wagner 0-0-0. Totals 13-8-40. KEYSTONE (60): Liam Goran 2-0-4, Brendan Hagerman 0-0-0, Zach Shackelford 4-1-10, Emory Fedor 6-0-12, Colt Cowling 11-0-25, Karter Urig 1-0-3, Ryan Younglas 1-0-2, Ty Holzhauer 0-0-0, Trever Blackburn 0-0-0, Troy Helbig 1-0-2, Bobby Gurich 0-0-0. Totals 27-1-60. Columbia&emsp; 8&emsp;11 7&emsp;14&emsp;—&emsp;40Keystone&emsp;19&emsp;17&emsp;12&emsp;12&emsp;—&emsp;60 Three-point goals: Columbia 6-29 (Hess 2, Menge 2, Duley, Washburn) Keystone 5-21 (Cowling 3, Shackelford, Urig). Field goals: Columbia 13-52 (25 percent), Keystone 27-56 (48 percent). Free throws: Columbia 8-8, Keystone 1-4 (25 percent). Rebounds: Columbia 17 (Duley 5, Reust 5), Keystone 40 (Fedor 11). Total fouls: Columbia 5, Keystone 11. Turnovers: Columbia 17, Keystone 23.