The Thomas More basketball teams took down Hillsdale nine days earlier, but could not repeat those outcomes on Saturday in Crestview Hills. both won in Michigan nine days earlier and hoped for repeat performances on the home Connor Event Center on Saturday.
Here are the details:
Women
Hillsdale 69, Thomas More 60
The Saints didn’t score their first bucket until 5:10 remained on the clock in the first quarter when Rachel Martin made a 3-pointer from the top of the key.
Rylee Turner then came off the bench and scored two buckets including a triple with 3:47 left to put the Saints up 8-7. Thomas More would not lead after that point falling to 10-6 overall and 6-3 in GMAC play.
Hillsdale (6-9) extended its lead to 35-25 at halftime then Kendall McCormick and Caitlin Splain took over building it to 19 at 51-32 with 3:10 left in the third quarter. The Saints made a run trimming that lead to four four times in the fourth quarter, but came no closer than that as the Chargers made all 10 free throws in the final 4:15 of the game.
“It was a great job by Hillsdale. They came out and really took it to us right from the very beginning,” Thomas More head coach Jeff Hans said. “They played like the hungrier team. We couldn’t get over the hump because they made plays right from the very beginning. I’m proud of how we fought back. That’s the only positive I got on it.”
Hillsdale put four players in double digits. McCormick and Splain led the way scoring 16 each with Lauren McDonald and Dani Hohlbein adding 14 and 10, respectively.
“They can do so many things,” Hans said of McCormick and Splain. “Splain is just so deadly from the three. We talked about it in the scouting report not giving her an open look. She had two or three in the first half where we were just standing there letting her shoot. You can’t play horse with them at any level – high school maybe, I guess. But we’re not in high school anymore. (McCormick) just got to the rim. We would go for every fake. She made every good ready, every good play to finish. That was a great job by them.”
Thomas More saw three players score in double digits. Alex Smith scored 15 with Martin and Tuner scoring 12 each.
“You do want to make adjustments to what the other team is doing to you, but we try to focus on us and not the other team,” Martin said. “When it comes down to it, we weren’t ready to play at the beginning of the game and we didn’t adjust quickly enough. When we started to go on a run, we dug ourselves in a pretty deep hole that we had to get out of.”
Turnovers made the big difference in this one leading to Hillsdale taking seven more shots. Thomas More gave the ball away 20 times and Hillsdale did it 12 times. The Chargers outscored the Saints, 25-11 off turnovers.
Thomas More made its run at the end of the third quarter and to start the fourth scoring 10 straight to trim the Charger lead to 53-47. Desiree Tandy finished it with a jumper in the right post.
“When we started pressing, we were able to get more turnovers than we were in the halfcourt,” Turner said. “We just have to be able to turn those turnovers into points.”
Thomas More hits the road Thursday to take on Ursuline College (Ohio) at 5:30 p.m.
CHARGERS 69, SAINTS 60
HILLSDALE — 15-20-18-16 — 69
THOMAS MORE — 10-15-14-21 — 60
Scoring
Hillsdale (69) – McCormick 16, Splain 16, McDonald 14, Hohlbein 10, Pietrzyk 5, Pnacek 4, Konkle 4
Thomas More (60) – Smith 15, Martin 12, Turner 12, Leonard 7, Tandy 5, Vickers 4, Hunt 3, Morgan 2
Game Stats
Free Throws: Hillsdale 12/13, Thomas More 7/8
Fouls: Hillsdale 13, Thomas More 18
Records: Hillsdale 6-8, Thomas More 10-6
Men
Hillsdale 73, Thomas More 65
Thomas More head coach Justin Ray could not talk about toughness enough in the post-game press conference.
Thomas More fell to 10-7 overall and 5-4 in GMAC action. The Saints shot 38% from the field in that half and Hillsdale shot 63%.
“There’s not much to say,” Ray said. “I’m really disappointed. I thought we had tougher guys. We just haven’t been able to put together an entire game. We’re going to find out how tough we are. I’m not going to let up on these dudes. We’re going to keep putting forth the effort. I tell them tongue in cheek all the time, ‘You’re either going to quit or you’re going to get better,’ but I’m going to be up your rear ends about doing the right things, holding each other accountable, playing the right way. We have a bunch of guys feeling sorry for themselves, making excuses. It’s everybody else’s fault. It’s not theirs. We’ll stay on them trying to get better.”
Thomas More led 34-33 with 39.6 seconds left before Nathan Dudukovich hit consecutive threes to put the Saints up 40-33 at halftime. Dukukovich finished with 12 points making four 3-pointers.
The Saints tried a number of different ways to create things whether passing inside the paint to bigs Carson Browne and Kyle Ross or driving to the hole. Casey George led the Saints with 18 points and Jacob Jones scored 11 with Browne just missing out on double figures with nine.
Hillsdale (10-5) also put three players in double figures. Charles Woodhams led the way with 15 and Joe Reuter scored 14. Eric Radisevic came off the bench to score 12 both inside and outside as Hillsdale outscored Thomas More, 29-16 in points off the bench.
Hillsdale also won the rebounding battle, 32-23. Reuter had 11 for a double-double.
Reuter scored five straight to give Hillsdale the lead for good at 48-44 with 14:55 left in the game. Thomas More trimmed the lead down to 60-58 with 7:25 left after a Jones jumper, but came no closer.
Thomas More hosts Malone on Thursday at 7 p.m.
CHARGERS 73, SAINTS 65
HILLSDALE — 33-40 — 73
THOMAS MORE — 40-25 — 65
Scoring
Hillsdale (73) – Woodhams 15, Reuter 14, Radisevic 12, McCollum 9, McWhinnie 8, Janowski 7, Yarian 4, Vasiu 4
Thomas More (65) – George 18, Dudukovich 12, Jones 11, Browne 9, Jolly 8, Ross 4, Vieth 3
Game Stats
Free Throws: Hillsdale 8/12, Thomas More 4/6
Fouls: Hillsdale 9, Thomas More 14
Records: Hillsdale 10-5, Thomas More 10-7