All Julius Wilson had to do was find his own two feet.

After missing a layup earlier in Friday night’s Chippewa Valley Holiday Tournament championship game between L’Anse Creuse North against Warren Woods Tower, he was drawn up a play where, if all went well, he’d just need to make a layup.

And with the voice of his head coach, Kurt Wilson, in his head, the Crusader spun to his left, planted both feet, jumped and made a layup that put his team up 57-55 with two seconds left. With a missed final heave by the Titans, Wilson’s bucket stood alone as the game-winner.

“We went to him. He had a rough game today,” Kurt Wilson said. “He came and played the second half with three fouls, and we went to him at the end. We’ve been working on it, (he’s a) big guard, you know. So we got lucky and he finished.”

“But he did good, because he missed the layup previously. You know why he missed that layup? Because he didn’t listen to the coach. I’ve been telling him all day, go off two feet. Go off two feet. Go off two feet.”

The game, which was high scoring through the first three quarters, ground to a halt in the fourth when the Crusaders scored just 10 points to Warren Woods Tower’s seven. Before that, each team had two quarters of scoring 18 points and led to a 48-47 Titan lead after three quarters.

Both teams made shots — LCN buried five 3-pointers in the first half to Tower’s three to claim a six-point lead, 36-30, going into halftime. But before they could extend that lead any further, Titan Malachi Brand popped off for 10 points in the third quarter, leading his team back and getting their first lead since the first half with a minute to go in the third.

From there, the lead shifted several times — thrice in the last minute of the third alone — and neither team led by more than four points.

Tower pulled even at 55 apiece with just over two minutes left in the fourth. The teams traded turnovers and missed shots down the stretch before Wilson’s shot finally fell.

“We almost got rattled,” Kurt Wilson said. “We took a couple bad shots, (but) we were able to recover. That was the bad (from tonight). You have to stay in control, and we did. The good thing is we continued to fight, even when we did make mistakes. We went back, played good (defense), took some big time charges. Played some good defense.

“We got work to do. We are not ready yet. We are not ready. We’re gonna get there, though.”

Brandon Thomas led all LCN scorers with 14. Ricky Sparks had 12 and Aaron Koch scored 11. Nehvir Njoku (eight), Tyler Palmer (three) and Brian Clark (two) also scored alongside Julius Wilson’s seven.

The Crusaders (6-2) beat Cousino, 57-39, on Thursday evening in the first round of the four-team tournament to advance to Friday’s title game.

The way Warren Woods Tower got there was a bit more surprising — the Titans battled host Chippewa Valley, who entered Thursday night a glimmering 9-1, and defeated the Big Reds 62-60.

“We take it one game at a time,” said WWT head coach Chris Kyles. “We’re hard-nosed. We might be small, but we’re tough. We’re skilled and talented. We knew that Chippewa Valley would be a tough team. They’re talented.”

Three players especially kept the Titans in the game to the last second on Friday: Robert Gordon scored 17 points and both Malachi Brand and Ralpheel Glass scored 12 points.

But the three players combined to score just five points in the fourth quarter after rallying up 36 together in the first three.But even with the loss to L’Anse Creuse North, the Titans (5-3), who entered Friday on a five-game winning streak, felt that they proved something.

“We come to compete,” Kyles said. “We believe in ourselves. We know we’re a really good basketball team, and we play together. We play as a team, and we’re hard-nosed. This weekend we showed others what we knew, and this tournament showed others that we can play with anybody in the conference, and we’re a team to be reckoned with.”

Also scoring for Tower were Cody Charleston (five), Brendan Remend (four) and Trevin Burrell (three).

L’Anse Creuse North will play one more non-league game (Walled Lake Northern on Sunday at North Farmington) before taking on their MAC White slate.

“This could be a growth period,” Kurt Wilson said.”We won the last two games, and we play on Sunday at North Farmington. Every coach hopes this kickstarts us into, you know, we want winning to be contagious. And if that does (happen), then we’re off and running.”

Warren Woods Tower’s next contest will be one that counts — a Jan. 7 tilt against MAC Gold rival Port Huron.

“The goal is to win the MAC Gold,” Kyles said. “That’s our goal. We got some tough competition with New Haven, Lake Shore in the conference as well, and a couple other good teams. So our goal, our first goal, is to win the conference.

“The ultimate goal is always, at Warren Woods, is to beat De La Salle. So those are two goals right now: work hard and win. And then let that carry in the districts. Hopefully we’ll be there at the end with the trophy.”

In the tournament’s consolation game, Chippewa Valley beat Cousino 66-26.