Rebounding issues and turnovers hindered Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn’s chances to knock off South O’Brien as the two teams met for a War Eagle Conference clash December 17 at Paullina. A late first-half run by the Wolverines was also detrimental to the HMS cause as the home team was able to come away with a 68-40 win. The loss dropped the Hawks to 0-2 in the conference and 1-6 overall.
“I thought we competed really hard and did a lot of good things,” commented HMS head coach Nate Hoaglund. “We got the ball inside out and made their zone work. We got some quality shot opportunities and were able to capitalize. We did a nice job of finding Isaac (Schierholz) at the high post and he was great at distributing the ball and finding open shooters. I was pleased with our ball movement and shot selection. We were down four with about three minutes to go in the first half and I thought we were competing well and doing the things that we needed. From there, Derek Paulsen kind of took over