JEROMESVILLE — – It probably felt like the 24 hours from hell for the Hillsdale boys basketball team.
One night after losing their grip late on a potential win at Smithville, the Falcons returned home Saturday and met Wayne County Athletic League powerhouse Norwayne.
The Bobcats – ranked No. 12 in the Division V state poll on MaxPreps – turned up the defensive heat and had Hillsdale sweating all night in a 66-40 runaway victory.
(Photos by Doug Haidet)
It was the 20th league win in a row for the defending WCAL champs, and the 17th straight for Norwayne (11-1, 6-0 WCAL) over the Falcons (6-3, 2-3) – a streak dating back to the 2015-16 season.
Hillsdale head coach Ben Ferguson said a random bottle of Ibuprofen showed up on his office desk before Saturday’s game. In retrospect, he joked that it felt like a warning of things to come.
“What a weekend,” Ferguson said, reflecting on the back-to-back league defeats. “We’re gonna get better and I’m not down about the loss. That’s a great team, and they’re a great team in Division V.
“That’s the most intense pressure we’ve seen all year, and probably will see, until we play them again.”
The Bobcats forced Hillsdale into more turnovers in the first 12 minutes than they had averaged for an entire game coming into Saturday night (10).
The visitors scored more than half of their 20 first-quarter points off turnovers and watched senior guard Tyson Hess put up 10 of his game-high 26 points to stretch out the score in the third quarter.
By night’s end, the Bobcats held the Falcons 25 points below their scoring average and had their 10th win this season by more than 20 points.
“Everybody brings a different element to the table for us,” said 18th-year Norwayne coach Brian West, who now has 285 wins. “It’s nice that when we’re not hitting much from the perimeter that we’re able to score in different ways.
“And when everything’s getting chaotic, the guy who always brings us back is Parker Metsker at point guard,” he added. “He is a once-in-a-lifetime type of kid to coach.”
A senior, Metsker finished with nine points, nine assists and six steals. Senior Braden West added 14 points and sophomore Braylon Arnold chipped in 10.
Hess, meanwhile, went on a 7-0 run of his own early in the third period after Hillsdale’s Bradey Krichbaum dropped in a bucket off an assist from Hayden McFadden that made it 35-26.
That was the last time the Falcons were within single digits.
Hess entered the night averaging a team-high 17 points per game and finished just two points off his season-high.
“He’s always around the ball and he’s always been that way,” coach West said. “For a guard, he’s really long, rebounds it well, finishes well around the rim. He probably moves without the ball better than anybody else on our team.”
The rest of the story was about Norwayne’s defense.
The Bobcats clearly were locked in on neutralizing Hillsdale point guard Lowen Ferguson, the team’s best ball handler and outside shooter.
He kicked off his freshman season nicely with averages of 12 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and just 2.5 turnovers per game, but the Bobcats forced him into seven turnovers Saturday while holding him scoreless until a pair of free throws in the final minute.
“There are a lot of great players who have had more turnovers than their season average against that kind of squad,” coach Ferguson said. “It’s very tough to mimic that speed and that pressure in a practice.
“This is where some of the scrimmages that I had planned would have helped us – they were all bigger schools with very aggressive players, and those were planned (to prepare for Norwayne).”
Hillsdale, of course, didn’t get the benefit of a scrimmage due to the football team’s run to the state championship game.
“This is our ninth game and I have to keep reminding myself that – if I’d have had some scrimmages and things like that – things would be different,” Ferguson said.
“(Norwayne has) laced up their shoes for more games than we have for practices at this point in time. That matters, especially at the high school level when you have a young team.”
The Falcons trimmed their deficit to 20-16 behind an 11-4 run to close out the first quarter, when they received nine points from junior guard Troy Bennett.
But Bennett didn’t score the rest of the way and Hillsdale didn’t have a double-digit scorer until Krichbaum (12 points, 9 rebounds) netted a basket with less than 6 minutes to play.
Holland Young added eight points off the bench for the Falcons.
Ferguson said he’s looking for learning moments right now for his squad, one that he feels is improving, but likely watched any hopes of a WCAL title vanish on Saturday.
“We want to finish as high in the league standings as possible,” he said. “I don’t think second place is a stretch; I hate to be sitting here in January gunning for second place, but I think reality is setting in that first place is no longer within reach.”
That race looks like it will be of the two-horse variety between Norwayne and Smithville (11-1, 6-0; No. 9 in Division VI on MaxPreps).
Hillsdale led the Smithies on Friday with 2 minutes left before eventually falling, 56-50. The Bobcats – who won three road games in the WCAL for the week – will host Smithville next Friday.
Hillsdale returns home Tuesday for a non-conference game against Columbia, then hosts Rittman (2-8, 1-4) Friday before a road contest on Saturday at Dalton (5-4, 3-2).