Last week, the Hillsdale College men’s basketball team took a trip down south, beating Trevecca Nazarene University on Thursday, and Kentucky Wesleyan University on Saturday.
The Chargers gutted out a pair of three-point wins, stretching their win streak to six games. This streak is twice that of any other team in the G-MAC, giving them a 9-1 record overall.
The road trip began against Trevecca, where Hillsdale sprinted out of the gates, grabbing a quick 10-0 lead. The Chargers backed up their start with a strong first half, leading by 13 at the break, and as many as 21 in the game.
This lead, however, didn’t last long, with Trevecca making a tough second-half push, including a 13-0 run, cutting their deficit to just seven points with under eight minutes left.
Hillsdale was able to hang on to their lead behind sophomore Patrick Cartier, who scored six of the Chargers last eleven points, giving them a 56-53 victory. Despite the win, head coach John Tharp had a list of things that the team could have done better.
“We fouled a little too much, we let the ball go inside a little too easy, and I was late making an adjustment on our ball screen defense,” Tharp said. “On the offensive end, we missed some wonderful opportunities that didn’t go in. You kind of string all that together, and that’s how we lost such a big lead.”
Senior guard Connor Hill noticed that allowing teams back into games has been an all too common occurrence for the Chargers this season.
“It’s happened to us three or four times this year, where we’ve gotten up on teams, to that 10 or 20-point mark, and then we just keep letting those teams back in it,” Hill said. “We can’t really push the leads out to where we want them, but if we can figure out how to do that, we’ll be just fine.”
The Chargers then traveled north from Nashville to meet Kentucky Wesleyan, the team that ended their season early last year.
Another strong start gave the Chargers leads of as much as eight points throughout the first half.
A 6-0 run from Kentucky out of halftime briefly tied the game, and from there they fought back and forth with Hillsdale for most of the second half, threatening to upset the conference-leading Chargers.
As the game went down to the wire, the Chargers came alive. Cartier had seven of his game-high 21 points in the final four minutes, before finding senior Davis Larson on a backdoor cut with 33 seconds left. The layup gave the Chargers the lead, which they held onto for the rest of the game.
A big part of holding on to that lead was Hill’s clutch performance at the free throw line.
“I was in a similar situation against Trevecca, and I went 0-3,” Hill said. “I was honestly thinking to myself ‘I cannot do this again.’”
He didn’t. Hill went 4-4 from the line with under 20 second left, giving him 17 points to go along with his four assists, and securing a 66-63 win for the Chargers.
Cartier had a season-high of 12 rebounds coming only two days after his 17-point, seven rebound game against Trevecca.
“I think something that really helped us in both games was we have really good scouts,” Cartier said. “Our scouting team did a good job getting us ready and knowing the other teams plays and pointing out their weaknesses, and I was just able to take advantage of the matchups that I had.”
Looking forward to their games this week, the Chargers have two home games against Lake Erie College and Ohio Dominican University. Tharp’s message for the team going into this homestand is a simple one.
“Well, we just have to get better. We have to be better, and that should be our very simple goal,” Tharp said. “We play a certain style, we’re not a run-and-gun team per say, we’re not an incredibly high possession team, but we’re a team that shares the basketball. As long as we continue to do that and defend, I think good things will happen.”
To secure tickets for games, visit https://hillsdale.universitytickets.com 24 hours before the event’s start time. Tickets will be $5 and there will be a capacity limit of 250 spectators. A certain number of seats will be reserved for families of student-athletes and coaches, as well as Hillsdale College students.