CROOKSTON BOYS BASKETBALL ENDS GAME ON 17-3 RUN TO BEAT CLIMAX-FISHER

The Crookston Pirate Boys Basketball team outscored Climax-Fisher 17-3 in the final six minutes of the game on their way to an 81-63 victory on Pirate Brother night at the Crookston High School gymnasium.

The first half was an entertaining 18 minutes with two ties and four lead changes.  Crookston started the game with back-to-back three-pointers by Walker Winjum and Caden Osborn for a 6-0 lead. “It was a nice start for us,” said Pirate Coach Greg Garmen. “After that, we tried to do too much.” In a sign of how the first half would go, Climax-Fisher answered with seven straight points behind five Trea Byklum points and a basket from Hayden Reitmeier.  Crookston answered with six points with Osborn scoring four and Nick Garmen scoring after a long pass from Jack Garmen for a 12-7 lead with 12:35 left in the half.  The back-and-forth continued with a 13-0 Climax-Fisher run with five different players scoring for a 20-12 lead.  Crookston trailed 28-19 with five minutes left when they picked up their play and finished the half on a 19-8 run with Nick Garmen scoring 10 of the 19 Pirate points to take a 38-34 lead into halftime. “Nick was a little sluggish early, but he got going and started making some shots,” said Coach Garmen. “We picked up our defense a little bit late in the half too, which helped.”

The second half was more of the same with Climax-Fisher scoring the first four points of the half to tie the game at 40.  Crookston answered with a 12-2 run with Walker Winjum scoring seven points, Nick Garmen chipping in a three-pointer and Osborn grabbing an offensive rebound and basket for a 50-42 lead with 12:29 left in the game.  Climax-Fisher slowly chipped away at the deficit and trailed 64-60 with six minutes left in the game, but Crookston dominated the rest of the game with a 17-3 run behind a mix of Nick Garmen, Caden Osborn and Walker Winjum and the Pirates pulled away for an 81-63 victory.  “It was an exciting game, back-and-forth the entire game and the run late at the game was the difference in the game because up to that point and was back-and-forth,” said Coach Garmen.  “It was hard to believe we were up by that much at the end of the game because it was a much closer game, but that late run was big for us.  We played some better defense and we started locking some guys down and we rebounded better.”  Crookston’s Nick Garmen (29), Caden Osborn (25) and Walker Winjum (18) combined for 72 of the teams 81 points.  Winjum was on the KROX postgame show and we asked him why his offense has been picking up lately and he said, “There have been a few things.  I have been more aggressive shooting the ball.  I talked with coach Garmen last week and he said I need to look to shoot more so I have.”

Crookston improves to 6-8 on the year and will host Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton on Monday.  Climax-Fisher drops to 3-13 on the year.
J.V. – Crookston won 47-20

Pirate Boys Basketball vs Climax-Fisher

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