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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
It took about 13 minutes to shed the rust
from a three-week layoff, but the Hutchinson Community College men’s
basketball team finally did so in the final non-conference game of the
season on Tuesday against the Friends University Junior Varsity.
Sophomore Bobby Maze had his second
double-double of the season to lead four Blue Dragons in double figures as
Hutchinson defeated the Falcons 89-62 to complete the non-conference portion
of the schedule with a five-game winning streak and winners of 9 of its last
11 games.
“We weren’t going to play this game,
originally,” HCC head coach Ryan Swanson said, “But I am glad we did. If we
would have come out Saturday playing sluggish in the first 12 minutes
against, Seward, we would have no chance to win. Seward’s too good. I’m glad
we had this game. It was good to play a regular game.”
The game was originally scheduled for Dec. 8,
but a winter storm forced the postponement of that contest. The Friends JV
pushed Fort Scott hard before falling late in the Dec. 7 game, so HCC knew
that they would have to play well to earn a victory.
The rust off three weeks off was apparent
early when Friends held a 23-19 lead with 6:58 to play in the first half.
But the Blue Dragons broke the game open from there, closing the first half
with a resounding 28-5 run.
“We started to play better defense,” said
Maze, who led HCC with 19 points and 12 assists for his second double-double
of this season. “It was definitely our first game from three weeks off. A
lot of people had to get back into tune. We just had to get the feel for the
game back. I felt like after the first half that we played well.”
Maze had a spectacular stat line on Tuesday,
going 7 of 7 from the field and 5 of 5 from the free-throw line. He also had
12 assists to no turnovers, three rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.
Sophomore Antonio Weary finished with 17
points on 7 of 11 shooting and tied a season high with four steals.
Sophomore Ken Bowman finished with 15 points and seven rebounds and
sophomore Abdul Herrera had 12 points and five rebounds.
The Blue Dragons shot 36 of 73 (49.3
percent), including 5 of 18 from 3-point range and 12 of 18 from the
free-throw line. HCC had a season-low nine turnovers and season-highs of 28
assists and seven blocked shots. Hutch also tied a season high with 16
steals. HCC outrebounded Friends 37-28.
“It’s good experience,” Weary said. “We won’t
go into conference just off vacation with just a few days of practice. It
was a good thing we had this game. We were a little rusty at the start of
the game.”
The Falcons shot the best field-goal
percentage that the Blue Dragons have allowed this season, shooting 49
percent overall (24 of 49), including 8 of 19 from 3-point range. Friends
was just 6 of 10 from the foul line. That shooting percentage was offset by
23 Falcon turnovers.
Mike Hyde finished with 13 points to lead
Friends. Seth Powers had 12 points.
HCC led 19-16 in the first half when Friends
went on a 7-0 run. Powers knocked down a 3-pointer to tie the game at 19-all
with 8:20 to play, and then Austin College and Hyde scored on back-to-back
possessions to give the Falcons a 23-19 lead with 6:58 remaining in the
first half.
From that point, it was all Blue Dragons.
Maze’s conventional three-point play started
an 18-0 Blue Dragon run over the next 3 minutes, 28 seconds. The Dragons had
four slam dunks and two other layups, primarily coming off Falcon turnovers.
Herrera’s inside hoop gave Hutch a 37-23 lead with 2:13 left in the half.
That was also the start of Hutchinson’s 28-5 run to close the half. Weary’s
bucket with 2 seconds remaining in the half gave HCC a 47-28 halftime lead.
HCC outscored Friends 42-34 in the second
half, but the game was never in doubt. An early 8-0 Friends run pulled the
Falcons within 15 points at 51-36 with 15 minutes left in the game, but the
Dragons methodically pulled away and built a 30-point lead for the first
time on Dobrivoje Mavrak’s basket with 3:56 to play for an 80-50 lead.
The Blue Dragons will play host to Seward
County on Saturday night in the 2008 Jayhawk West opener at 7:30 p.m. in the
Sports Arena.
GAME NOTES
– The 12 assists by Bobby Maze were the second-most in HCC history. Maze
owns the single-game record with 13 assists. … HCC’s bench outscored
Friends’ 35-15. … HCC scored 31 points off Friends turnovers. … HCC had a
19-4 advantage on second-chance points. … Sam Edwards had a new season high
with eight points. … Ken Bowman tied a career high with three assists.
<HCC-FRIENDS
JV BOXSCORE>
<HCC-FRIENDS PHOTO GALLERY>
OTHER QUOTES
Head Coach Ryan Swanson
On the team’s slow start …
“We came out and we showed that we were off
the last three weeks. We stepped it up, especially defensively when we
started to create turnovers and started to get some easy baskets in
transitions. We went on that run late in the first half where we played
pretty well.
“Early we were a little slow. Defensively we
weren’t as aggressive as we needed to be and offensively we settled too much
instead of getting the ball inside.”
On the play of Bobby Maze and Antonio
Weary …
“When Bobby and Antonio want to be, they can
be phenomenal players. Sam had some good minutes too; they got the ball
rolling for us in the first half.”
Redshirt Freshman Antonio Weary
On the team’s slow start …
“We felt like in the middle of the game, we
let up. They were shooting a lot of shots and making them, so we had to turn
it up. I thought we did better defensively.”
On the team’s 28-5 run to close the first
half …
“We started to feed the post a little bit
more and we were scoring layups. That got us going. |
