All five Hillsdale College starters scored in double figures as the Chargers avenged their only loss of the season, taking down the No. 6 University of Findlay Oilers on their home court. This stretches their win streak to 10 games and gives them the top spot in the conference.
A little more than a month ago, the then No. 23 Chargers suffered their only loss of the season as Findlay’s senior guard Tommy Schmock’s half-court buzzer beater gave his team the three-point edge in remarkable fashion. But on Saturday, Feb. 6, the Chargers evened the season series in front of a maximum-capacity crowd to grab their 13th win of the season, 82-71.
The meeting marked the only time that two top-15 men’s basketball teams from the G-MAC have played each other.
“They’re one of the traditionally great DII programs in the country, so beating them is always nice, and protecting our home court is really important,” head coach John Tharp said. “At the end of the day though, it either goes on the left side of the column, or the right side, and it went on the right side.”
Sophomore forward Tavon Brown missed only one shot all game, putting up a career-high of 14 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double.
“I kind of just got hot, I went into the game just trying to focus on my offensive rebounding,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to overthink much, I feel like when I overthink I don’t play my best. I felt like recently I hadn’t done a great job offensive rebounding, so I just focused on that going into the game and everything else fell into place.”
Everything did fall into place, as the Chargers had more team rebounds, assists, and blocks than the Oilers, as well as higher shooting percentages from the field, three, and free throw line.
Along with Brown, senior guard Connor Hill put up 16 points, senior forward Austen Yarian added 11, and senior forward Davis Larson scored 10.
“Tavon had four offensive rebounds for us, and he had two threes. Yarian had three threes, and Hill had two threes as well,” Tharp said. “When those guys are shooting threes and making them, it opens up the middle, which allows more space for the big guy.”
The big guy, sophomore forward Patrick Cartier, led the team in scoring for the ninth time this season, putting up 27 points to go along with seven rebounds. Cartier rounded out a Chargers starting lineup that shot more than 60% from the field.
His performance on Saturday, along with his career-high 30 point night during Tuesday’s win over Cedarville, earned him another G-MAC Player of the Week award, his third in the last four weeks, and fourth overall this season.
Cartier has also entered the Hillsdale record-books yet again as he now holds the best career field goal percentage of any Hillsdale player all-time, with 64.3%.
Not only that, but Cartier also made another bit of Hillsdale history, as the first Charger ever to win a United States Basketball Writers Association National Player of the Week Award.
“Even though this is an individual award, it really speaks to our team and the success we have had this year,” Cartier said. “My teammates have done an amazing job making tough passes to give me easy buckets. I’m excited for the rest of the season.”
The No. 6 team in the nation gave the Chargers trouble to begin the game, grabbing a 16-13 lead with eight minutes left in the first half. Tharp had enough and called a timeout to let his team know it.
“I think I yelled at them a little bit because they weren’t really running any actions, we were just kind of stagnant,” Tharp said. “Our movement was really slow, and defensively at that time, we weren’t being very aggressive. I told them they have to stop being so passive, that’s what I remember at least, there may have been some other choice words mentioned.”
The timeout sparked the Chargers on both sides of the ball, as they proceeded to go on a 19-6 tear, taking back the lead, which they refused to give up for the remainder of the game.
Despite this, the second half was hard-fought most of the way, with Findlay coming within three points right out of halftime, and again with less than 10 minutes to go.
Both times, the Chargers responded with personal 5-0 runs, one from Brown, the other from Hill.
“It’s always good to play well, especially against Findlay. They’ve kind of been our rivals the last couple of years,” Hill said. “I hit a couple of big shots, but it was a great overall team effort, couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Though it won’t show up on the stat sheet, the players said having a crowd of Charger fans to play for affected the game.
“It’s so much more fun with the crowd there. We tried our best early in the year without fans to have our bench really get into it, like a real game, but there’s just nothing like it,” Hill said. “I think we’re a big team that plays off the crowd and the energy, so it’s honestly really helpful having everyone back.”
The Chargers now prepare for a three-game road trip, with their first stop at Malone University at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11. With only six games remaining in the regular season, the players said that Tharp’s message to the team continues to stay the same.
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time, we’re not looking ahead, we’re not looking behind us, we’re just looking at the next game or two,” Hill said. “Hopefully we can get two more wins this week and just keep it going.”
The Chargers will take a road trip to Walsh University on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 3 p.m., and Ohio Dominican University on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m.
