News Photo by James Andersen Fairview's Tylor Ross (21) attempts to move past Hillman defender Gunnar Libby to the basket during a boys basketball game in Hillman on Friday.

HILLMAN–Five games in nine days?

No problem for the Hillman boys basketball team.

Three games in four days?

Piece of cake.

If anything, the Tigers have shown the ability to thrive under pressure.

Hillman ended a three-game home stand on a winning note on Friday, easily defeating Fairview 70-41 in a North Star League matchup.

Friday’s win extended Hillman’s North Star League winning streak to 50 games and extended the Tigers’ regular season and home winning streaks to 49 and 40 games respectively.

After a 16-day layoff, the Tigers (10-0, 7-0 NSL) came out of a tough five-game stretch looking better than ever. Eleven different Hillman players scored in Friday’s win and the Tigers did what they’ve done to so many opponents before: overwhelm them on both ends of the floor.

“In all my time here, I’ve never played that many games like that and to strive and succeed like that (is good). It did help being at home this week and that’s why we ended up doing the makeup games like we did,” Hillman coach Eric Muszynski said. “Hats off to those guys. They put their hard hats on for two weeks.”

Gunnar Libby paced Hillman with 30 points and led the Tigers high-octane attack from the opening tip. Libby connected four times from three-point range in the first quarter alone and finished the period with 14 points.

Hillman played back-and-forth with Fairview for a few minutes, but a 12-2 run over the last five minutes of the first quarter put Hillman firmly in control.

The Eagles (8-3) did what they could to keep up with the Tigers, but they struggled early and had to settle for mid-range jumpers rather than driving inside. Too many trips down the floor ended with no points and the Eagles could only watch as Hillman attacked, especially from the wing.

Hillman connected 10 times from beyond the arc and spread the ball around effectively both inside and outside. Kory Henigan added nine points for the Tigers, Brandon Banks had seven and Jared Juergens chipped in with six.

“We spent a lot of time yesterday working on our man offense and working on offensive sets. Last year defense generated a lot of offense,” Muszynski said. “This year our defense is still generating offense, but one thing that we’re doing is guys are starting to find spots and gaps and roles on offense.”

Fairview fell behind by 19 late in the second quarter, but went on a small run to cut the deficit to 16 at halftime as Hillman led 38-22 at the break.

Hillman pulled ahead by 22 in the third quarter before Fairview went on another small run to pull within 15. But as before, the Eagles couldn’t string together many consecutive scoring possessions and fell behind as the Tigers’ offense continued to roll.

Drake Willobee led Fairview with 13 points and Seth Cleeves added 10.

Hillman’s JV team edged Fairview 41-40. Jacob Morrison led Hillman with 10 points and Nash Steinke and Ethan Holford added six each. Jesse Yoder led Fairview with 30 points.

——

HILLMAN (70): B. Kolcan 1 2-3 4; B. Banks 3 0-0 7; G. Libby 11 1-2 30; K. Henigan 3 3-4 9; J. Juergens 2 0-0 6; N. Taratuta 1 0-0 2; C. Kronholm 0 1-2 1; K. Moir 1 0-2 2; C. Wittman 2 0-0 4; M. Hunt 1 0-0 2; A. Schulze 1 0-0 3.

FAIRVIEW (41): T. Ross 2 0-0 5; D. Oaks 0 2-2 2; D. Willobee 3 6-13 12; J. Fleszar 2 4-4 8; S. Cleeves 4 0-0 10; N. Alvarez 2 0-4 4.

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.