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HARTINGTON - The Cedar Catholic Trojan basketball team stumbled into the Christmas break needing a break.
As injuries seem to be piling up a little, head coach Nick Haselhorst’s charges can use a little recovery time.
A couple of sore knees, an ankle injury and a groin injury are hobbling the Trojans and it was showing on the court.
In their final game before the Holiday hiatus, Cedar Catholic was defeated by Mid State rival Crofton 49-38.
The first frame ended with the Warriors clinging to a 9-8 lead, but Crofton would add eight points to the lead by the intermission.
The Trojans made a comeback in the third closing the gap to 33-29, but a final session which the Warriors won 16-9 shut the door and Crofton went home with the lowscoring 49-38 victory.
Cedar shot just over 38% from the field and 2-for-11 from beyond the 3-point line and committed seven more fouls than Crofton.
The Warriors picked up eight points on the Trojans from the charity stripe.
Mason Baller led the Cedar offensive effort with 14 points, Toby Heine added seven and Micah Cattau and Jared Rutar tossed in six points each.
Baller also dished out three assists and swiped three steals.
Cedar Catholic will head to Wayne Dec. 29 through Dec. 31 for the Northeast Shootout at Wayne State College.
CRO (6-2) 9 13 11 16 - 49 CC (1-2) 8 5 16 9 - 38 CEDAR CATHOLIC: Mason Baller 6-17 1-2 14; Gavin Klug 1-5 0-0 2; Micah Cattau 2-6 1-1 6; Toby Heine 2-5 3-4 7; Breiton Whitmire 1-2 1-2 3; Ryan Hoebelheinrich 0-0 0-4 0; Lighter Wortmann 0-5 0-0 0;
