Senior captain Ashton Janowski at his first practice

Junior forward Caleb Glaser came back from an injury to score a team-high 15 points, but the Hillsdale men’s basketball team lost 71–51 to the No. 1 ranked team in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, Walsh University, Jan. 31 on the road. 

“A good team will expose your weaknesses, and I think that Walsh did a good job of showing those to us,” assistant coach Jackson McLaughlin said. “It’s all about growth, and our season is far from over, so this gives us a good chance to focus on improving and learning from our losses.”

The Chargers scored only 13 to Walsh’s 41 points in the first half, but outscored Walsh 38–30 in the second half. Despite Hillsdale’s comeback, the initial deficit was too great to overcome, leaving the team 5–7 in the G-MAC and 8–12 overall. 

In the first half, the Chargers fell behind quickly due to turnovers and difficulty completing the shots they managed to get off against Walsh’s pressure. At the close of the half they were 3–18 for field goals and 0–10 for 3-point shots. The second half saw the Chargers put up a good battle, with Glaser returning after missing the last two games to lead the team in points. Freshman guard Braylon Morris also contributed 11 points, and senior guard Ashton Janowski added 10. 

“After a first half that went so wrong, I was proud of our team for not giving up and continuing to play hard the entire game,” Janowski said. “We told ourselves we needed to break the game down and make it more simple, which meant focusing on things we can control every possession on both offense and defense. It took a lot of effort and focus that we had lacked in the first half, but to our credit, we turned that around in the second half.”

With only one game that week, McLaughlin said they were able to take a day off practice on Wednesday.

“It allowed for a bit of a reset, which will help us to get through the rest of the season,” he said.

Junior forward Garrett Bolte said the loss provided them with good material to focus on in practice this week.

“The game exposed a lot of our weaknesses, but knowing those will prepare us well for a homestand this coming week,” Bolte said. “We need to start by handling pressure better and being far more disciplined on defense going forward if we want to try to make a run in the conference tournament.”

The Chargers face Tiffin University Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Ohio Dominican University Feb. 7 at 3 p.m. at home.