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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
GARDEN CITY – With both post players Ken
Bowman and Abdul Herrera on the bench after fouling out, the Hutchinson
Community College men’s basketball team was almost defenseless to stop
Garden City on Wednesday night.
With both HCC’s centers out of the game,
Garden City exploded in the final 7 minutes, 5 seconds and knocked the Blue
Dragons out of contention a top seed in Region VI with a 78-61 victory over
the Dragons at the Perryman Athletic Complex.
HCC (21-8, 11-4 Jayhawk West) cannot overtake
Seward County for the top seed out of the Jayhawk West for next week’s
Region VI Tournament. HCC can still claim a share of the Jayhawk West
championship with a win over Cloud County on Saturday and a Seward County
loss at Colby on Sunday.
Hutchinson trailed 55-54 with 7:05 to play in
the second half when Bowman, HCC’s preseason second-team All-American fouled
out. The Broncbusters instantly reeled off 11 straight points en route to
outscoring Hutchinson 23-7 down the stretch.
“The fouls on those two guys killed us,” said
HCC head coach Ryan Swanson about losing Bowman and Herrera, who fouled out
with just more than 5 minutes to play. “When Ken fouled out, that’s when
they went on an 11-0 run and killed us in the game. When you have to 6-9
guys out of the game like that, you won’t be able to replace them.”
Garden City’s Corey Claitt to plenty to help
the Broncbusters (18-10, 7-8) snap a four-game losing streak and hand HCC
its eighth loss in the last 10 trips to Garden City. Claitt had the
second-most points by an opponent, scoring 28 points on 12 of 22 shooting.
Trevor Ottley scored 12 points and Jordan Ragan added 10 for Garden City.
The Broncbusters almost became the
second-straight team to shoot 50 percent against HCC. Garden City was 28 of
57 overall (49.1 percent), shooting 6 of 17 from 3-point range and 16 of 25
from the free-throw line. Garden City had just 13 turnovers.
The Busters shot 14 of 27 (51.9 percent) in a
second half where they outscored Hutchinson 45-28.
“We want to try and win every game wherever
we play,” HCC sophomore Henry Rogers said. “We practice hard and we want to
carry it over to the game. We aren’t making that transition right now.”
Sophomore Bobby Maze led HCC with 17 points,
hitting a career-high three 3-point goals. Herrera posted his first career
double-double with 14 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.
Rogers had a strong game, just missing a
double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds. Rogers also had a
career-high five assists.
Hutch shot 24 of 68 overall (35.3 percent)
and was 4 of 21 from 3-point range. The Dragons were 9 of 19 from the
free-throw line, but outebounded Garden City 45-38.
Bowman finished with eight points and four
rebounds before fouling out, playing a season-low 15 minutes, 36 seconds.
“Ken is one of the best players in the
country,” Swanson said. “We have to have him play a lot, especially against
a team that zones a lot. We have to have some guys step up defensively and
we have to have some guys make some shots for us to be good.”
For the second-straight game, the Dragons
started out quickly, only to lose that momentum.
Back-to-back inside hoops by Bowman gave HCC
a 7-2 lead with 17:34 to play in the first half. Garden City answered with a
14-2 run over the next 4:11 and led 16-10 with 13:21 to play after an Ottley
bucket.
Trailing 18-17 with 11:41 to play in the
half, Hutchinson saw Garden City go on a 12-6 run to build a 30-23 advantage
after a Claitt bucket with 6:33 to play in the half.
Hutchinson answered to force a tie at
halftime, outscoring Garden City 10-3 over the remainder of the half. The
Dragons scored seven straight to tie the game at 31-all. After a Claitt
jumper gave Garden City a two-point lead, Maze scored with 1:14 to play to
knot the game at 33-all, which was the halftime score.
With the foul problems mounting in the low
post for HCC, the game was back-and-fourth over the first 10 minutes of the
half with eight lead changes. A Maze 3-pointer with 8:48 remaining tied the
game at 54-all. But with Garden City leading 55-54 at the 7:05 mark, Bowman
picked up his fifth foul and Garden City exploded. The Busters score the
next nine points and led 64-54 with 5:55 to play.
Hutchinson had just one field goal over the
last 8:48 of the contest and missed its final 12 shot attempts of the game.
Hutchinson will close out the regular season at 4 p.m. Saturday against Cloud
County.
GAME NOTES
– The Dragons committed only 13 turnovers. … HCC is now 17-4 when
outrebounding an opponent. … Henry Rogers has 60 rebounds in his last six
games. It was Rogers’ eighth double-figures rebounding game this season. …
Garden City’s Tyrone Flemming tied an opponent season-high with 13 rebounds.
… This was HCC’s second-lowest output of the season. … Bobby Maze is the
only Blue Dragon to score in double figures in every game this season. … HCC
is now 4-5 in road contests this season.
<HCC
MEN-GARDEN CITY BOXSCORE>
OTHER QUOTES
Head Coach Ryan Swanson
On losing two straight road games …
“Part of that is because we are playing
really good teams on the road. Garden has traditionally been a tough place
for Hutch to play. We had our chances. We aren’t going to hit the panic
button. We lost to two good teams on their home floor. We need to get back
to protecting home. We don’t want to go into the playoffs on a three-game
losing streak.”
Sophomore Bobby Maze
On the recent struggles of the team …
“It’s not like we haven’t seen this before.
We just have to step up as a team. Teams are concentrating on me right now,
but we have to take advantage of the situation and step up. We had it tied
up and halftime. We didn’t have the fire we usually have. I don’t know
what’s going on, but it was a disappointing loss today.
“Coach does a terrific job of preparing us.
This is all on us. We have no one to blame but ourselves.”
On Garden City’s second-half run …
“We didn’t get back on transition defense. I
take the blame for that. It’s my job to get back. I didn’t get back a couple
of times and they had some key buckets because of that.”
Sophomore Henry Rogers
On Bowman and Herrera fouling out …
“It was humongous. We have two of the best
players in the conference fouling out. That killed us. They were
contributing so much on both ends. After they were out, we had to hard twice
as hard and we didn’t get it done.”
On battling through the late-season swoon …
“We have to stay consistent. It’s getting
close to the end of the year and people are tired. We have to keep picking
each other up.” |
