News Photo by James Andersen Hillman's Brandon Banks, left, drives to the hoops as Gaylord St. Mary's Liam Beningo defends during a boys basketball game at Hillman High School on Wednesday.

Twenty four hours made a big difference for the Hillman boys basketball team.

After a less-than-solid victory on Tuesday, Hillman coach Eric Muszynski reminded his team what makes Hillman’s program so successful: having fun and playing loose.

The Tigers took Muszynski’s message to heart and responded with a 73-50 win over Gaylord St. Mary in which they looked a lot more like themselves.

All the familiar Hillman traits where there: the Tigers played fast-paced defense and forced turnovers, they knocked down three-pointers with ease and they showed off the depth of their talent on offense.

Gunnar Libby led Hillman with 17 points and Billy Kolcan, Brandon Banks and Andrew Funk each added nine. Nic Taratuta chipped in with eight points and Kory Henigan and Chris Wittman each had seven.

It was a welcome relief for the Tigers (9-0, 6-0 North Star League), who battled through a tough slate of games last week and felt some pressure despite being victorious.

“The guys kind of started to get uptight and tonight I thought we played pretty loose. That’s something we talked about after the game yesterday,” Muszynski said. “We talked about being loose and playing our style, that’s what’s gotten us here; having fun, playing loose and executing.”

Hillman’s looseness was apparent from the opening tip as the Tigers began the game with an 11-2 run, creating turnovers and converting them into points. The Snowbirds cut the lead to 13-12 late in the period, but triples from Wittman and Libby in the last 30 seconds pushed Hillman’s lead to seven.

The Snowbirds matched up well with Hillman for a good part of the game, but St. Mary couldn’t do much to slow the Tigers offensively. St. Mary also couldn’t keep pace on offense and had too many stretches where for every one basket it scored, Hillman responded with three or four.

“St. Mary is a good squad from the Ski Valley, but coming off of last night’s game and what we had to go through last week, it’s mentally draining,” Muszynski said. “Tonight the guys got back to enjoying themselves and not overthinking.”

The treys from Wittman and Libby sparked a 12-3 run by Hillman to open the second quarter and effectively put the nail in St. Mary’s coffin. The Snowbirds trailed 33-22 at halftime, but did cut the lead to eight as Brady Hunter drained a three-pointer to open the third quarter.

Hunter led St. Mary with 11 points, Ryan Meisner had 10 and Drew Long added nine.

Hillman led 51-39 after three quarters and the Tigers’ bench saw increased time and made the most of it. Wittman and Taratuta led the way, but Hillman also got points from Jared Juergens and Kyler Moir.

The win stretches Hillman’s North Star League winning streak to 50 games and increases their regular season and home winning streaks to 47 and 39 games respectively.

Muszynski hasn’t shied away from talking about Hillman’s records, but said the last few games have been shown that even as the streak continues, the Tigers aren’t going to win by high scores every time.

“A lot of this time we’ve been really fortunate to have some games where maybe you’re blowing some people out or they’re not really super competitive. You get in a couple close games and everybody gets uptight,” Muszynski said. “That’s a product of our product and what people have grown accustomed to over the years. At the end of the day these are still young men and they’re expected to perform night in and night out. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

Hillman hosts Fairview on Friday.

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HILLMAN (73): G. Libby 6 2-3 17; B. Kolcan 4 0-0 9; B. Banks 4 0-1 9; K. Henigan 3 1-2 7; C. Wittman 3 0-0 7; N. Taratuta 3 1-2 8; A. Funk 4 0-0 9; K. Moir 1 0-0 2; J. Juergens 2 0-0 4.

GAYLORD ST. MARY (50): B. Hunter 3 4-4 11; J. Powers 3 0-3 6; A. Greif 2 1-2 5; R. Meisner 5 0-0 10; P. Jameson 2 0-0 5; D. Long 3 0-0 9; L. Beningo 1 0-0 2; J. Nowicki 1 0-0 2.

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