MMCRU was able to pull away from Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn in the third quarter and then withstood a couple Hawk rallies to defeat HMS 61-58 January 25 at Marcus.
“Tough result to our game,” remarked HMS head coach Naet Hoaglund. “We scored enough points to win but couldn’t get the defensive stops to come away with the win.” The Royals’ Kyler Bork nailed all seven of his three-point shots and finished with 24 points. Derek Goth went 4-for-9 from beyond the arc and contributed another 16 points to the home team’s effort.
“MMCRU had a couple of guys get hot from three,” acknowledged Hoaglund. “We let them get into a rhythm early with some uncontested threes and they were able to knock them down. I thought we played hard. We got down by nine twice in the second half and both times were able to come back and tie it. We had a few chances to tie it or take the lead at the end of the game. We just couldn’t take advantage of those opportunities. MMCRU did a good job in their zone of making it difficult to get our posts going. That’s something we’ll have to get better at solving. Defensively we’ve got to do a better job at communicating, urgency in our closeouts and rotations, and our screen coverages.”
The Hawks were able to connect on 52 percent of their shots, going 23-for-44 from the field. They were 7-of-21 from long distance and 5-of-11 from the charity stripe. MMCRU went 23-for-48 from the floor for 48 percent. The Royals made four of their 11 foul shots.
HMS got 19 points from Kooper Ebel, 12 from Lance Berends, nine from Travis Kamradt, six from Jordan Ortega, five from Mason Brinkman, four from Keevyn Jacobsma and three from Trenton Vollink. The 16 Hawk assists included four from both Brinkman and Ebel, three from Kamradt, two apiece from Vollink and Berends and one from Ortega.
Berends claimed 10 rebounds. Ebel grabbed nine caroms and came away with six steals. Kamradt added another four steals as MMCRU turned the ball over 17 times. The Hawks were guilty of 12 turnovers.
HMS 17 12 12 17 – 58
MMCRU 17 10 20 14 – 61