News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Hillman senior Vanessa Schook (12) races past Fairview defender Andrea Ford and scores on a layup during the third quarter of a girls basketball game on Monday at Hillman High School.

HILLMAN — It has been a long time since the Hillman girls basketball team tasted defeat. The Tigers lost their season opener back on November.

Eighteen games later, Hillman made history by winning out after defeating Fairview 52-39 in the regular season finale on Monday at Hillman High School.

The Tigers (18-1, 15-0 North Star League) suffered a three point home loss to Cedarville in their first game of the season and then proceeded to make history by running the table and finishing with the best overall record in program history, along with holding the program’s longest winning streak at 18 in a row.

“It’s been a very special and historic season that we have had. These girls should be proud of their effort and I told them that seasons like this don’t come around often,” Hillman coach John Kuzewski said. “I want them to enjoy the moment that we are in, but we need to remember that we’ve only accomplished one of the goals that we set out to accomplish and hopefully we’ll have bigger things coming up.”

Monday also marked the final time that Hillman’s four seniors, Vanessa Schook, Morgan Armon, Jenna Clink and Olivia Smith would play on their home court.

All four seniors started the game and the Tigers were tested in the early stages of the game by a Fairview team that is in first place in the North Star League’s Little Dipper division.

The Eagles opened up a 6-2 lead three minutes into the game and Kuzewski called a timeout to try and settle his team down.

Hillman responded out of the timeout scoring eight of the final nine points of the opening quarter to take a three point lead.

Both teams continued to struggle on the offensive end throughout the first half, but the Tigers were able to take a 18-15 lead into the break after a low scoring second quarter in which the two teams combined for just 16 points.

“We started out a little slow tonight and Fairview is a very good team, they played us tough in our first meeting of the season,” Kuzewski said. “Fairview gave us a great effort and I’m glad we played them. I knew coming in that they were going to give us a really good effort. We had to work on many different things and that’s going to help us going into our first district game.”

The Tigers picked up the pressure defensively and caught fire offensively early in the second half. Hillman ended up breaking the game open early in the third when Schook and Lyndsey Ryba combined for nine points in the Tigers’ 13-2 run to take a 34-21 lead.

“I was very happy with the second half effort that we had. Offensively and defensively we picked it up and had more energy, we moved the ball much better and that led to a convincing victory,” Kuzewski said.

Fairview did all it could to claw its way back into the game, but Hillman held an 11 point lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Tigers put the game away after scoring the first 12 points of the final quarter to take a commanding 50-27 lead and Hillman’s entire roster saw action.

Kuzewski called a few timeouts late so the crowd could honor the seniors one final time on their home court.

“Tonight was a special night for the seniors. They were all able to start the game and I was able to get them all out the game so that they could get a hand from the crowd which I think is important,” Kuzewski said. “They put a lot of heart and sweat into playing on this court for many years and they deserve it.”

Fairview was led by Andrea Ford who scored a game high 14 points. Jenna DeJarlais added 11 points and Alyson Winton chipped in with 10 points in the losing effort.

Ryba led Hillman with 13 points. Schook added 12 points and Eve LaFleche collected 11 points.

Hillman will be off for the next eight days before opening up district play on March 1, against Onaway at Posen High School.

“Onaway is going to give us a good test. They are a well disciplined team, well coached and we are going to need our bring our A game on that first night of districts and I believe we will,” Kuzewski said. “We said at the beginning of the year that league was our first goal and we accomplished that. Districts are our next goal and we have some things in mind, but we need to take it one game at a time right now.”

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HILLMAN (52): L. Ryba, 6 0-0 13; V. Schook, 4 2-2 12; J. Appelgren, 1 0-0 2; M. Armon, 1 0-0 2; E. LaFleche, 4 2-4 11; B. Jones, 0 1-2 1; A. Taratuta, 2 0-0 5; K. Kenyon, 2 2-2 6.

FAIRVIEW (39): J. Winton, 1 0-0 2; A. Ford, 4 3-8 14; A. Winton, 3 4-4 10; J. DeJarlais, 5 1-4 11; W. Layman, 1 0-0 2.

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