Highland grounds Hillcrest Ravens

RIVERSIDE - Preparation for postseason basketball requires some extra effort by high school teams, especially when they have already played two games against the other.

Both Highland and Hillcrest added some extra things to practice before Thursday's Class 1A District 7 quarterfinal game which Highland won 47-36, its third win against Hillcrest this season.

Highland won 65-58 at Hillcrest Jan. 7 and won at home 49-44 Feb. 3.

Highland improves to 19-4 while Hillcrest's season ends at 11-10. The Huskies advance to play at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Highland against North Cedar, a 76-50 winner over Lisbon.

The Huskies brought out chairs in their practice while Hillcrest used a broom. The broom was to simulate Highland's Zack Lasek's 6-foot-8 frame. The chairs were to help Highland with its defense and rebounding.

'I thought we were prepared for the big guy, but he is very agile and a force on the inside,” Hillcrest coach Dwight Gingerich said.

Lasek scored 11 points while Bill Laughlin led the Huskies with 13. They did just enough to get that separation and then we never got it back.

'We really focused on defense in practice,” Laughlin said. '(Assistant) Coach (Cory) Quail introduced a new defensive drill that really helped us. He called it musical chairs. We put chairs in the lane and around the line, so when the shot went up we really had to hustle to get a rebound. That helped us work on our defense and our rebounding.”

The teams traded baskets early, but Highland led 11-9 at the end of the first quarter. The Huskies opened the second quarter on a 7-2 run. Hillcrest responded with two 3-pointers by Eli Ours, who finished with 12 points, but just two in the second half.

'They definitely keyed on Eli,” Gingerich said. 'They were in his neighborhood all the time. Eli has been our primary 3-point threat. I thought they were very active in their zone.”

'We know what to expect out of these guys,” Highland coach Bill Zywiec said. 'There was no overconfidence from having beat them twice. They beat us three times last year. We did not want Ours to get heated up. He started to in the second quarter, but I called time and we regrouped.”

Highland closed the half on a 7-2 run for a 30-21 halftime lead and it was still a nine-point difference after a defensive third quarter left the score at 37-28.

'I feel like we did a great job defensively making them work to get shots, but they were patient enough to keep working the ball and it paid off for them,” Gingerich said. 'They took away some of the things that we wanted to do. I felt like we had enough things in our repertoire to go to, but maybe we didn't go to them enough. I'm proud of the effort the guys put forth. This was a young team with only two seniors and Highland started five seniors.”

Highland hadn't played a game since last Monday.

'We had a lot of time to practice since our last regular season game,” Zywiec said. 'We were happy with our offense so we spent most of that time practicing our defense. Our goal was to keep them out of the 40s. They have great shooters and they are well coached. Almost every practice was set on the defense and the kids bought into it. We did not know how our shots would go down but we did know that if we kept them from doing what they liked on the offensive end, we could be successful. We really stressed hustle on the defensive end.”

Cole Adamson scored 12 points and Mason McFarland nine. Colby Stokes rounded out the Huskies scoring with two.

'I get a lot of motivation from teammates and parents telling me to look to score,” Laughlin said. 'Throughout my career, I have not looked to score and I have started to do that more this year. This was an important night for me to do that. When the rest of us are looking to get our own baskets, we might not get them, but it opens up things for everybody. When they are doubling down on Zack, if we can make our shots, it will open things up for him. And that opens things up for everybody.”

Hillcrest's press caused Highland troubles occasionally, but the Ravens did not always convert steals into points.

'We just did not score enough,” Gingerich said. 'I thought Highland played really well.”

The lead ranged from seven to 11 in the second half.

Kobe Borntrager had 10 points for Hillcrest, eight in the second half. John Hughes and Noah Miller added six apiece and London Schrock had two.

'We talked among ourselves and felt our offense is in a good place and that we should focus on our defense,” Laughlin said. 'To win games in the postseason, we felt we needed to work on our defense. We felt we had to shut down Eli and Kobe. Ours hit a few but after that, we stopped him. We kept him off the foul line and that was a big goal because I don't think he misses free throws.

'Playing them is kind of a revenge factor for us because they beat us three times last year and three times the year before.”