Trojans get even with Warriors
Sports reporter
For a while Friday night at Hillsboro it looked like a repeat of Marion High School's latest victory.
Instead, HHS turned a close game into a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter, en route to a 57-44 victory against the Warriors.
The loss dropped MHS to 2-2 in the Mid-Central Activities Association, and 5-8 overall. A victory would have meant the second in eight days against the Trojans for the Warriors, instead Marion fell to 2-2 against Hillsboro in their past four meetings.
Senior Calvin Jeffrey led the Warrior scoring with 17 points and three assists.
A tie game at halftime turned into a 35-30 lead for the Trojans after three periods.
Hillsboro's Clay Shewey, who scored the team's first eight points of the second half, had 18 points and four rebounds, and David Loewen had a game-high 19 points to go along with nine rebounds.
"I thought we did a good job of executing our defensive game plan," MHS head coach Rex Ostmeyer said. "Early only our defense kept us in it, but our offense was inconsistent."
The Trojans scored 22 points in the fourth quarter, one more than the entire first half.
The Warriors, despite making three more field goals than the Trojans, were just 19-56 from the field, and missed a lot of close looks to the basket.
"We just didn't get the ball in the hole," Ostmeyer said.
Early in the game neither team could, with MHS out-scoring HHS 11-10 in the first quarter, and Hillsboro returning the favor in the second.
The first half was similar to the game eight days earlier — as was the third quarter.
Hillsboro jumped ahead seven points in the loss, before Marion used a 10-0 run to take a lead it would never surrender.
However, in Friday's game, Hillsboro jumped ahead seven again, 39-32, but the closest Marion would come was 44-39 with four minutes, 36 seconds left after an Isaac Hett three-point play.
Ostmeyer was called for a questionable technical foul on Marion's next possession, after making it known he thought a block by Loewen should have been a foul.
Shewey hit a free throw, and Daniel Jost added a field goal for a 47-39 lead.
Hillsboro's next 10 points were free throws, and Marion continued to miss shots, scoring just five more points.
Despite Loewen's productive game, which included 6-8 from the field, and 7-7 from the foul line, Ostmeyer thought his team did a good job on the big man.
After fouling out in the first meeting, Loewen had just two personal fouls in Friday's contest.
"We made it a lot harder for him to operate," Ostmeyer said. "We kept his field goals down, but the difference was he stayed on the floor the entire time."
The Warriors, as they usually do, spread out the scoring in the first quarter with Hett registering four points, Jeffrey three, Luke Gordon and Justin Heidebrecht two, and Eric Vogel one.
Hett finished the game with nine points and three rebounds, while Chase Carlson had eight points, four assists, and three steals. Gordon continued his recent dominance on the glass, grabbing 12 rebounds, seven offensive, to go along with seven points.
He is averaging 10 rebounds his past four games.
"He's been more aggressive the last couple of ball games," Ostmeyer said of the junior Gordon. "He's got it in him. He needs to realize he has the talent."
In fact, Ostmeyer wants his entire team to realize it has the talent to compete with nearly everyone on its schedule. The defense has impressed the fifth-year coach, but he feels inconsistency has plagued the offense.
"That's just kind of the way we are, and it usually evens out in the end," he said.
But sometimes it doesn't, and playing in front of a hostile crowd like Hillsboro, it has to, or a loss is inevitable.
With seven league games left, including a home game Tuesday against Nickerson that finished before this issue went to print, the Warriors need to find that consistency.
The 10-0 run that propelled the Jan. 17 victory against the Trojans impressed Ostmeyer, but he would like to see it more often.
"It's a good sign," he said. "I feel pretty good about where we are defensively, our guys just have to be consistent offensively."
The next game for the Warriors will be at 8 p.m. Friday on the road against league opponent Lyons.
