Yesterday at Hickman High School the Helias Catholic Crusaders came to Columbia to play the Kewpies.
Leading into this game, the Crusaders had a record of 7-8 and were coming off of a 25-point win against Capital City. On the other hand, Hickman was off to a far better start to the season, and had a record of 11-5, with their last game being a 27-point home win against Boonville. While their records were significantly different, their matchup was anything but a blowout.
Hickman won the opening tip-off, but they conceded the first two points of the game through a floater made by senior point guard Sam Lopez. However, not long after junior Elijah Tatum opened up the scoring for Hickman with a layup of his own.
Early on, the narrative was made clear that this game would come down to the wire. The Kewpies took their first lead of the game at 9-7 after a three-pointer made by senior Roman Kemp. There was very limited scoring during the rest of the first quarter, and it ended with a one-point game, with a score of 13-12, Hickman leading.
At the start of the second quarter, the theme of the game remained unchanged, both teams exchanged points and there were multiple lead changes. However, Roman Kemp (12) helped Hickman take a lead of seven points with his 10 points off of three made three-pointers and one made free throw.
Unfortunately for Hickman, their seven-point lead would be short-lived because Helias struck with a three-pointer shooter of their own. Senior Alex Schonhardt made the three with less than 10 seconds remaining in the first half to close Hickman’s lead. There wasn’t any more scoring and the score at the end of the first half was 26-25 Hickman.
This game was shaping up to be a close one and this theme continued at the start of the third quarter as both teams once again exchanged multiple scores of their own.
Another common theme of the game was Hickman’s ability to pass the ball around, find the open player, and make open buckets.
“Sharing the ball [was important], especially whenever you go against the zone, you’ve got to shift that zone, and the only way to do that is to move [the] basketball…The moment that you move that ball, it moves a lot faster than anybody can run. So they have to adjust, once we cause that adjustment, we play a puzzle game from there… it works out to our advantage.” Coach Cray Logan said.
In the third quarter, the game remained very close, and Alex Schonhardt made another three of his own, to give Helias their first lead of the half 37-35. Hickman was able to limit Helias’ attack and they held their lead to four, making the score 39-35 in Helias’ favor at the end of the third quarter.
The two teams’ standstill persisted in the fourth quarter, and after a bucket by senior Brock Camp who gained his twentieth point of the game, Hickman took the lead 46-45. Hickman seemed to have Helias where they wanted them to end the game at the end of the fourth quarter after a clutch And-1 by senior Kadin Lewis, giving Hickman the lead 52-48.
Helias answered back with a layup of their own and called a timeout down two 52-50 with 41.5 seconds left in regulation. During that timeout, both teams had different messages in the huddle and Hickman’s goal was to win the game in regulation.
“We just talked about making sure that we executed. And they did a tremendous, tremendous job. Within that first or the last 30 seconds of regulation, we got three or four great attempts in the basket, and that’s all I could compliment them for. We got the opportunities we wanted. The ball just didn’t fall in the basket at the time. So they did a great job.” Coach Logan said.
Helias junior Logan Hillman made a contested reverse layup with just under 30 seconds to play to tie the game at 52. Following Hillman’s layup Hickman had multiple attempts to win the game but like Coach Logan said, the shots just didn’t fall.
Brock Camp would score first in overtime, this time as a free throw, bringing his point total to 21, along with giving the Kewpies a 53-52 lead. Once again, Helias answered with another three-pointer by Alex Schonhardt, bringing his point total to 21 as well, causing Hickman to take a timeout.
Out of the timeout, Elijah Tatum gave Hickman back the lead by making two free throws with 1:07 remaining, making the lead 57-55. Hickman made another free throw causing Helias to call a timeout of their own with just under 45 seconds remaining down 58-55.
After the Helias timeout, Roman Kemp would make another clutch free throw, extending Hickman’s lead once again, making the score 59-55, where the game would end.
“[The game] went pretty well…[we only have] five home games, so we’re taking everyone [seriously]. Every time you come in here, it’s gonna be a battle, and I’m just happy we came out on top.” Brock Camp said.
Looking ahead, Hickman’s schedule will continue to have hard games on both the road and at home.
“Not too many people [expected] us to have the season that we’re having. Going down the road with the gauntlet we [have] coming up, I think we just need to just execute, and I think will be just fine.” Brock said.
In this game and many others, Brock has been a great asset to Hickman and gives them a great presence under the rim.
“I feel extremely spoiled to have [Brock] as a gift for our team and just a resource that we can all lean on and [know] that other teams have to pay attention to him and they have to guard him a little bit closer. Whenever they do that, it creates a numbers advantage for us… regardless of what the defense wants to do, we know they’re wrong. We just have to make sure we react in the right way.” Coach Logan said.
This game against Helias was a great game and Hickman is already looking forward to the rest of the regular season and playing late into the postseason.
“We want to play our best basketball in March, which means that we’re not done growing, we’re not done building, and in order for us to do that, we have to pay attention, we have to watch film, we have to reflect, we have to understand what we did well and what we can improve. As long as we continue with that consistency, we’ll give ourselves a pretty good chance at the end of the season.” Coach Logan said.