Hillsboro Boys Varsity basketball played their second game in as many days, taking on North County Raiders in their final game of the Raiders Home Tournament. The last time Hillsboro played North County was in the District Semi-Finals last year, in a heck of a game that saw the 22-5 Hawks beat the Raiders 66-59.
This time around Hillsboro wished this game had gone a different way, as we saw the Hawks suffer a 72-41 loss moving Hillsboro to 1-3 on the season.
North County came out fast and the Hawks did what they could to keep up. Zach Whaley was able to put up seven points in the first, scoring half of Hillsboro’s points that quarter. The Hawks went into the second quarter, down 20-14. Unfortunately, things only got worse from there. Whaley scored another five points in the second, but Hillsboro was held to only 10 points.
North County put up 18 in the second quarter, and took a 38 to 24 lead into the half. The second half was one to forget for Hillsboro as they scored just 17 total points. North County ran away with the game with a 17-point third quarter and a 19-point fourth. When it was all said and done Hillsboro had lost by 31 points.
“I thought we competed hard early,” said coach Dan Johnson. “We made some silly mistakes that led to some big runs by North County. We have to take care of the ball better.”
“You know it’s good to know that feeling that you’re beatable,” said Sophomore Kieren Jones. “ But our team won’t be getting used to it. We have a good group of guys and we can win a lot of games. We’ve just got to trust in each other. I’m glad to be a part of the program.”
Whaley and Eric Schneider led the team with 12 points apiece. Noah Holland added five, Jasiah Tullock had four and Ryan Cox scored three points. Jones and Kyle Besand had two points each and Kyle Phipps added a point.
Hillsboro will try to bounce back when they take on De Soto next on Monday at 7pm.
