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Tigers back on top

Hillman defeats Rogers City to win district title

News Photo by Jonnny Zawacki The Hillman boys basketball team poses for a picture after capturing its fourth distirct title in five years by defeating Rogers City 54-37 on Friday at Posen High School.

POSEN — For the fourth time in five years, a district trophy is coming back home with the Hillman boys basketball team as the Tigers avenged last season’s district championship loss by defeating Rogers City on Friday, 54-37 at Posen High School.

“This one feels sweeter because of what happened last year and this one is for Hillman. The town has went through a lot of adversity with many different things this year and I just hope that this team is a shining light for a wonderful town,” Hillman coach Eric Muszynski said. “These things are so hard to come by. A lot of people see this and think its simple and easy and it’s not, these kids work hard all year and this group inherited a tail end of a streak and we’ve had a lot of attention and that’s something we had to adapt to. I’m proud of how these guys performed not just tonight, but all season.”

Despite bouncing back from last years loss, the pain of that loss won’t go away, but winning another district title may help ease the pain in the meantime.

“Nothing can take away the pain of losing last year. We used that as extra motivation throughout the entire season,” Hillman senior Gunnar Libby said. “It feels great to have the district trophy back where it belongs.”

Much like the first two meetings between these two teams in the regular season, Hillman got off to a blazing start, scoring the first 10 points of the game and forcing Rogers City head coach Matt Ponik to call two early timeouts.

The timeouts worked and Ponik was able to settle his team down and the Hurons were able to weather the storm as the Hurons responded by scoring the next nine points to cut the lead to one and eventually got a three pointer from Phil Grambau with 45 seconds left in the opening quarter to help Rogers City hold a 12-11 lead after one.

“I knew it was going to be a back and forth game and I told the boys before the game that we needed to weather the storm. We gave ourselves a chance, but we just didn’t execute late and I’m proud of the guys and the way they play,” Ponik said.

The Hurons kept the momentum going early in the second quarter as Evan Delke entered the game and scored the first four points of the quarter to give Rogers City its largest lead of the game.

Like the Hurons, Hillman responded after a timeout as it scored 10 unanswered points to regain the lead and eventually took a 23-18 halftime lead.

“When you get into these championship games and tournament games, it’s a game of runs. We give them a blow, they give us a blow back and it’s kind of like a heavyweight boxing fight and that’s what you saw tonight,” Muszynski said. “When I called my first timeout I just told the kids, we gave them run and they gave us a run, now it’s time to respond and I thought we did a good job of that.”

Rogers City came out of the break determined to gain some momentum back and the Hurons were able to cut the lead back to one on two separate occasions early in the third quarter as Matt Altman scored Rogers City’s first six points of the half, but Hillman got hot from beyond the three point line and began pulling away as Brandon Banks and Jared Juergens hit back-to-back triples to put Hillman ahead by nine with 1:58 left in the third.

“I just kept telling them that we had to keep fighting. Hillman hit some timely three’s and when they run four talented guards out there its tough to slow them down,” Ponik said.

After holding a 37-31 third quarter lead, the Tigers owned the fourth quarter and put the finishing touches on a brilliant second half effort.

Hillman forced the Hurons into a handful of costly turnovers throughout the final quarter and the turnovers led to easy baskets. Libby played a big part of Hillman’s fourth quarter as he scored six crucial points including a dagger the dagger from long range with 1:33 left to give the Tigers a 15 points lead as Hillman’s ability to take charge at both ends of the floor late proved to be the difference as they ran away with a 54-37 victory.

“I just try to make the right play and my teammates have done a great job, especially lately, knocking down open shots,” Libby said. “My teammates take a lot of the pressure off of me and it feels great to bring the district trophy back home and there is only more to come.”

The Tigers got another balanced effort from the entire team as Libby led the Tigers with 15 points. Kory Henigan added 14 points, Banks collected 10 points and Billy Kolcan chipped in with eight points.

Rogers City was led by Grambau who scored 10 points. Delke added nine points and Altman chipped in with six points in the losing effort.

“It was a great year. I came into a great group of seniors. They have a laid a foundation for the rest of this program and I really enjoyed coaching each and every one of them,” Ponik said.

Hillman advances to a regional semifinal matchup on Monday against Cedarville at St. Ignace. The Tigers beat the Trojans 68-51 at Cedarville in the season opener.

“We are going to focus on us. We’re very familiar with Cedarville. We’ve had battles with Cedarville in the past and we know them and they know us, there are no secrets,” Muszynski said. “We’re looking forward to a good regional semifinal game on Monday and hoping we can advance further in the tournament.”

——

HILLMAN (54): G. Libby, 5 3-4 15; B. Banks, 4 0-1 10; A. Funk, 1 0-0 3; K. Henigan, 6 2-2 14; B. Kolcan, 3 2-2 8; J. Juergens, 1 1-2 4.

ROGERS CITY (37): M. Altman, 2 1-4 6; A. Radke, 1 2-3 4; J. Hilla, 2 0-0 4; D. Tulgetska 1 0-0 2; E. Delke, 4 1-1 9; B. Koss, 1 0-0 2; P. Grambau, 4 0-1 10.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.

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