The Hillsboro Hawks got back on the winning track and closed out the 65th Annual Gene Steighorst Tournament with an 80-60 win over Northwest Cedar Hill.
“Kieren Jones was good for us around the rim, while Ryan Cox and Werner Finder gave us some valuable minutes as well,” said head coach Daniel Johnson. “Eric Schneider was huge for us on the glass with 17 rebounds. We don’t know much about Perryville yet but it’s our home opener and our first conference game. We have to maintain the high energy we had against Northwest and do a better job executing consistently on both ends of the floor.”
It was a dominant first half by the Hawks (2-4) with the team leading 39-28 at the break. In the third, the team outscored Northwest Cedar Hill (0-4) 22-15 to expand its advantage out to 61-43. That lead was more than enough for the Hawks to go on for the 20-point win.
“It felt great to get the win, we spent every practice cleaning up our mistakes and it felt good to see something come out of our hard work,” said Kyle Besand.
The Hawks shot 59.6 percent from the floor and 53.3 percent from beyond-the-arc. Noah Holland led with a game-high 25 points on 8-of-11 shooting. Zach Whaley recorded a double-double with new season-high marks in points (16) and assists (10).
“We did better on the rebounds, and got a lot of good looks in the paint to score,” Kyle Phipps noted after the game.
Kieren Jones added 10 points, while Schneider added seven points to go along with his season-high 17 boards.
The Lions were led by Trey Davis’ team-high 15 points. Andrew Lenzen contributed nine, while Latham Logue finished with eight.
The team returns to the court on Dec. 15th when Perryville (0-4) comes to town. Tip-off at 7 p.m.
