Bobcats Rise Over Knights For Fifth Straight Win
The Bobcats rose over the Knights on Thursday 45-40 to take their fifth straight win. The low scoring game proved to be intense when Hillcrest took an early lead that left Madison to make a comeback.
The Bobcats started strong in the first quarter winning the tip. The Cats went up 4-0 with Spencer Hathaway scoring the first points of the game. However, the Knights went on to score 7 unanswered points 4 of which were scored by Hillcrest guard, Kyle Austen. The Cats then answered with six additional points with Hillcrest hitting a three in between. At the end of the first quarter, the score was tied at 10-10.
The Bobcats defense was lagging behind the Knights’ fast-paced offense so Madison Head Coach Travis Schwab made the switch to man-on-man.” We really went after them defensively in the second quarter,” said Schwab. “We also started our press which helped.” After the switch, the Bobcats shut the Knight’s offense down by allowing only two points in the second quarter. Hillcrest had a breakaway when Parker Boyle got a steal but, then gave the ball back to the Cats after a travel. Madison had six out of their ten players score in the second quarter. Whereas Hillcrest only had one player score. Kyle Jackson lead the team defensively when he had a big block on the baseline. After the block, Jackson put up 4 points.
After the strong defense by the Bobcats in the second quarter, the Knights were playing catch up. After several minutes of neither teams scoring Jackson put an end to the scoring slump with an and one power play. After the and-one Hillcrest’s Karter Battleson lit up the floor with back to back threes late in the third quarter. After that Hillcrest made a backdoor play and exposed Madison’s zone defense, which Madison switched back to after the second quarter, to pull Hillcrest back in the game trailing 36-29.
The fourth quarter was 49 seconds into the fourth quarter Madison got called on for an offensive foul giving the ball to Hillcrest. With a close game halfway through the fourth quarter, Madison double teamed Hillcrest. The ball popped loose and there was a scramble which ended up with the referee’s calling jump ball. With the call, Hillcrest got the ball back and set up a play but couldn’t convert.
At the other end of the court, Hathaway posted down at the block and put up another two points for Madison. Hillcrest came back down the court and started passing the ball around the arc with Kyle Austen shooting from 15 feet out. Jackson was there waiting to swat the ball out of the air so Hillcrest couldn’t cut Madison’s lead. Afterwards, the Bobcat lead was cut to 4 and then extended back to 6. Madison fended off Hillcrest to get their fifth straight win, winning 45-40.
“We played with heart tonight,” said Madison guard Spencer Hathaway. “We could have played better, but we played with heart.”
