Team effort shines as Chargers rout Ashland

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Team effort shines as Chargers rout Ashland
Harrison Niego scored 15 points off the bench in the Charger’s February 4 win. Collegian

In need of a win to keep pace in the GLIAC playoff race, the Hillsdale College men’s basketball team posted perhaps its best all-around performance of the season.

Five Chargers scored in double figures as Hillsdale overwhelmed the Ashland Eagles 80-55 on Saturday afternoon at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. With the victory, the Chargers improve to 11-11 overall and 7-9 in the GLIAC, and remain one game behind the Ohio Dominican Panthers for the final GLIAC Tournament spot.

“This win was really important,” Hillsdale head coach John Tharp said. “We’re still in the hunt to be one of those eight teams in the playoffs. We had to do it.”

Senior forward Rhett Smith led Hillsdale with 17 points on 6-of-8 shooting. Sophomore guards Nate Neveau and Harrison Niego each scored 15 points. Sophomore forward Nick Czarnowski scored 12 points and grabbed 6 rebounds off the bench, and junior guard Stedman Lowry added 10.

As a team, the Chargers shot 59 percent from the field (32-of-54) and 50 percent from beyond the arc (11-of-22).

“When you make shots you look really good,” Tharp said. “We had multiple guys making shots, and I thought we did a great job of moving the basketball… We just played inside-out throughout the game and we wore them down.”

Hillsdale was just as impressive on defense as they were on offense. The Chargers held the Eagles to 38 percent shooting (22-of-58) and forced 18 turnovers while committing just 8 turnovers themselves.

“We played really good team defense today and we did a great job of controlling the ball,” Tharp said. “We worked really hard yesterday on all their dribble-pitch and all their penetration and we really tried to prevent them coming down the middle on us. We were much better with our one-on-one defense.”

The Chargers wasted no time pulling ahead, taking a 20-10 lead less than 10 minutes into the game. Hillsdale made 8 of its first 13 field goal attempts while holding Ashland to just 29 percent shooting (4-of-14) to start the game.

After the Eagles scored six straight points to cut Hillsdale’s lead to four points, the Chargers responded with 12 unanswered points to take a commanding 32-16 lead. Niego led the Chargers early with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting, and Neveau had 8 points and 2 assists.

The Chargers continued their hot shooting and extended their lead to 43-23 with 2:55 left in the first half on back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers, two from Lowry and one from senior forward Smith.

Hillsdale took a 49-30 lead into the locker room after Ashland guard Adrian Cook drained a half-court heave that just beat the first-half buzzer. The Chargers shot 63 percent from the field in the first half (19-of-30) and made 10 of their 15 3-point attempts. Smith and Niego were already in double figures with 13 points and 11 points, respectively.

Hillsdale never let Ashland back into the game in the second half. The Chargers extended their lead to as much as 30 points in the second half and cruised to the 80-55 win.

The Chargers will return to action on Thursday night at Walsh when they will face the Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m. Hillsdale currently trails Walsh by a half-game as both teams try to catch Ohio Dominican for the final GLIAC Tournament spot.

“We’re just going to prepare like heck,” Tharp said. “They have two great seniors that are just a load for us to deal with, so we’ll try to get them ready to play. We’ll battle and try to throw a punch at them and see if we can just be solid for 40 minutes.”

Starting at Walsh on Thursday, the Chargers will play three of their final four games on the road. Hillsdale is just 2-6 away from home this season.

“That’s the next hurdle for this team to face,” Tharp said. “I’m encouraged because I think we are starting to play better but we haven’t be great on the road.”