Hiland 50 Ridgewood 46

• majorspark

  

  I was very impressed with Ridgewood. I take back my pre-season second to the bottom ranking. They were well coached and played some solid defense. Evan Jones? (if I heard the name right) was a solid presence around the hoop at 6'5". Only a sophmore, but with the full beard he looked more like a sophomore in college. They are young like Hiland and I see them as being a serious contender the next couple of years. In fact the IVC looks like it will produce quite a few stellar games the next few years.
  
  At times I thought I was watching the Dylan Kaufman dunk festival. Wow, 3 quite impressive dunks. The reverse was nice, but my favorite was the rebounded foul shot, dribble full court, and throw down while the defense watched in amazement.
• tfloangel

  I was too... Personally very glad this game got pushed back. Dylan's three dunks (especially the last) were worth the price of admission on their own! That last one, I think the R'wood players started trying to figure out who was gonna pick him up about the hash-mark. Its not like they weren't back - just no one seemed to want to get in the way!!! And Jalen Miller's falling out of bounds one-handed lob from 40' was pretty nice too. Who cares that he stepped on the side line and was after the buzzer. That was a pretty sweet way to close the first half.
  
  Hard to believe the man-child-lumberjack inside was only a sophomore. He was about unstoppable if he got it inside of 6 feet!
• jlghoops

  The third dunk was by far the most impressive. He exploded once he got to the foul line. Generals played well enough to almost pull and upset.
• Pariah

  I was very impressed with RW - not as impressed with the Hawks. You have to wonder if they were all fired up for the Pirates and then couldn't get it back the next night. This league is more balanced than I've seen it in a long time. Very few gimmes.
  
  RW's coach said on the pre-game radio show that he wanted to get the game to a 1 or 2 possession game late, and he had it right where he wanted it. Hawks can play some fierce D when they have to. That's what won it for them. Nice to have a competitive game though.
• ricola

  

  Hiland shot 34% from the field (22% from the arc). thank goodness we had Dylan who could kind of carry the team when everyone else had trouble scoring. (Tho congrats to Chaise for hitting a couple big hoops!). Ridgewood played a good game, and , with nearly the rest of the conference,it will make for an interesting year, not to mention next year as well. A lot of underclassmen making major contributions across the league. Easily could have gone the other way, tho the Hawks deserve credit for a major defensive stop the last 10 seconds, not giving Ridgewood the shot they wanted, or essentially any good look at the basket. Good to get a win when you maybe didn't play your best game (tho not taking anything from Ridgewood---that was certainly partly why Hiland didn't look great.) games like this help you down the road. It'll take a better effort at malvern if they want to keep the conference lead.
• Pariah

  I definitely think that they play to what their perception is of the opponent. Hopefully, their perception of RW matches the ability they displayed Saturday.
  
  Garaway game has been rescheduled for Sat 1/23. We play Malvern and Garaway at home back to back.
• sports_talk

  I got to see this Hiland stud for myself. he sounds like the real deal(Dylan). Does Highland have anything to go with him? LOL
• buckcc

  it just goes to show you, that Hiland gets the oppt's A game every time they play a IVC team. look what happen to Ridgewood last night against Strasburg even on there home floor. i thought after the way they played against Hiland on sat. they would beat Strasburg last night. it said in the Coshocton newspaper that came out very flat, with no intensity. I think u get that alot from a young talented team, like Hiland and Ridgewood. it seem like that sat.night Hiland was a little flat, and they only brought there B game.if they can play like they did against Triway in the second half of that game they will be hard to team beat.but which team shows for Hiland is anybody's guess, they better show upwith there A game tonight at Malvern.
• majorspark

  

  buckcc, your assessment is correct. Hiland is a "big" game on every IVC schools schedule this year. As for the Strasburg/Ridgewood game, I listened to it on the radio. The announcers stressed on several occasions that the Ridgewood players were not playing with any intensity. One even mentioned "you can see it in their faces".
• Pariah

  That winning streak is, what, 27 regular season games? And it's 20 straight in the IVC. Every team wants to be the one to end the streak, so Hiland will get everyone's best effort. They have to be ready for that every night out.
• buckcc

  Hawks sound like they brought A- game tonight at Malvern, Luke had a great game tonight, i think the radio said he had 20pts and Dylan with 16pts. they just need to learn how to put teams away when they have them down, with about 2 or 3 min to go in the game they had around an 18 to 20pt lead. still a very nice win on the Hornets floor. Hiland 72 Malvern 60
• ricola

  

  perhaps the game went from 20 points to 12 points in the last couple minutes, but I would say Malvern had already been "put away". At that point the game wasn't in doubt--only the final score, so don't have a problem with how Hiland finished. hiland played a pretty good game overall--any win at Malvern is always a good one. They are another young talented team in the Ivc that will be a force to be reckoned with for a few years with Tucci and (another) Kapron that are nice players. Good to see Luke have a nice game offensively--shows teams hiland has more than 2 guys who can score. and defensively hawks seem to be gradually picking it up a bit as well.