Unity Christian led from the get-go in handing Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn a 58-42 War Eagle Conference loss December 21 at Hartley. The Knights were up 27-14 at halftime but HMS cut the deficit to nine at 35-26. Unity then went on a 14-2 run to increase the lead to 21. The Hawks enter the Christmas break with a record of 3-4, including 1-2 in the conference.
Hawk head coach Naet Hoaglund credited the Knights’ tough defense with making it difficult for his team to finds its offensive rhythm and flow. “We lost to a good Unity Christian team,” stated Hoaglund. “Unity did a great job of doubling, even tripling down on our post touches. They made it really tough for Lance (Berends) to get going. We were just too stagnant offensively. I like to give kids the freedom within the game to play and make decisions, but when teams play us the way that Unity did and it becomes a grind offensively, I need to do a better job of giving solutions to our guys to get us going.”
Unofficial scoring showed Kooper Ebel with 17 points, Berends with 11, Mason Brinkman with nine, Keevyn Jacobsma with three and Jordan Ortega with two.
For the most part, the Hawk head man was pleased with his team’s defensive performance. “We held them to 38 percent from the field,” pointed out Hoaglund. “We were forcing tough shots. We just allowed too many second chance points and points off of turnovers.” The Knights came away with 15 offense rebounds and made 14 steals. “Unity Christian is a streaky team,” added Hoaglund. “They are so opportunistic with the chances they get and will capitalize if they get them. Credit to them for finding and succeeding in those opportunities. It was a battle and much more competitive than the final score would say. I thought our kids played hard and competed the best they could.”
The break comes at a good time for the Hawks. Noted Hoaglund, “We’ve been battling an illness bug that’s been going around and only had five guys at practice on Monday. So for those guys to come out and compete the way they did despite not being 100 percent says a lot. We will take some time over break to get healthy and recover and then get back after it with practices heading into the new year. It’ll be a good time to regroup and focus on us for a while before heading into the second half of the season.”
Unity 13 14 13 18 – 58
HMS 7 7 14 14 – 42