Clawson Advances To Tourney Finals with Victory over Lahser

Using every advantage available to them, Clawson advanced to the finals of the Holiday Tournament on Tuesday by defeating Lahser High School, 65-55.

Relying on its height and experience advantage, Clawson built a 20-10 lead in the first quarter en route to its fifth victory of the season. Junior guard DeShawn Gilbert and senior forward Tyler Marwin led Clawson with 14 points each, while senior guard Cody Lehman added 13 and senior center Eric Thompson,  who sat out the first half for missing practice, put in nine.

"We had a little bit of size and they are young, so the combination of our size and depth, we tried to physically impose it," Clawson head coach Bill Shellenbarger Jr. said. "I've got three or guys who are big bodies and with relative skill so we try to muscle it down there and on the flip side we have enough weapons on the perimeter where we can kick it out and knock down some shots."

Clawson's 10-point first quarter lead shrank to five by halftime as Lahser was down only 30-25. But Clawson pounded the ball inside and ran the lead back up to 16 after three quarters with a 53-37 advantage. Lahser scored 18 points in the fourth, but it wasn't enough.

Clawson improved to 2-0 on the season and Lahser fell to 1-4.

Lehman finished with five rebounds, four assists and four steals, while Thompson picked up five rebounds.

Overall, Clawson had nine steals and 11 assists to go with 10 turnovers on the night. There was one blocked shot and 25 rebounds. The team shot 15 of 25 from the field for 60 percent and was 5 of 17 from the three-point arc for only 29 percent. The team hit only 61 percent of its free throws – 20 of 33, not exactly where  Shellenbarger wants his team to be.

"The first game of the year we were 4 for 11 so I guess this makes me happy," he said. "But being about 60 percent – we need to be at 70 – especially if we're going to be in games where we can really close it out at the free-throw line. In a game like today, we can get away with missing 13, but a game where it's five or four or three you can't. We've got to get back to work on that."

The coach also said that fatigue could have been a factor and that he will work on getting players more rest during the game. "Some of our best free-throw shooters like Steve O'Connell missed three out of four – that's unlike him. But he played his guts out for me for 30 minutes – I ask a lot of him. Maybe, at the end of the game, he's a little bit fatigued so maybe we work on getting him another minute or two blow at the end of the first half or third quarter."

Defensively, Clawson prides itself on playing man-to-man but had to switch out of that mindset early in the game.

"We are a man-to-man team – tough, get after it and we got up 10 but we had some trouble off the dribble," he said. "So we switched to a 2-3 (zone) and we had scouted them and knew who their shooters were so it worked for us."

Junior center Jalen Harrison explained the team had put forth a lot of practice effort to come out on top.

"We've worked so hard and this is only our second game so its good to transfer what we've been doing in practice – run our offense, run our defense – in a real game," he said.

In giving credit to Lahser, Shellenbarger said, "They fought hard but we fought harder."

Clawson stayed with the defense throughout the rest of the game en route to its second win of the young season.

Clawson now plays in the finals at 7 p.m. Tuesday against Cranbrook, which defeated Shrine 69-50 in the second game of the tournament. Shrine will play Lahser in the consolation game at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

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