HOPE — Nobody at Hauser probably had a better Friday night than senior Jackson Paradise.
The only stumble Paradise had Friday night happened before the game when he forgot to accept his crown as Homecoming King, but once the ball was tipped, he became king of the court.
Paradise led the way with 24 first-half points en route to a career-high 41 to lead Hauser past Columbus Christian 78-49.
“I think what really sparked it tonight was confidence,” Paradise said. “Last week, I had one of the worst games of my career, but throughout this week leading up to tonight, my teammates, my coaches, they never lost confidence in me, and that played a really big part in me knocking down my shots. Really, this game was just about my teammates as it was for me. They kept finding me when I was open, and they kept making plays that got me open. As a team, we were really unselfish, and we were having fun on the bench, on the court and having fun and playing with lots of energy.”
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Paradise’s 41 points is third on the Jets single-game list. The school record for points in a single game belongs to Jeff Sneed with 51, and then Adam Miller with 42 in a game against Batesville in 2012.
Hauser (5-7) got off to an 11-0 start midway through the first quarter. The Crusaders (6-19) finally got on the board, but they trailed 18-9 after the first quarter.
The Jets started the second quarter on a 9-0 run to extend the lead to 27-9. Columbus Christian fought with a 6-0 run to cut it to 27-15, but could n not cut the gap any farther, trailing 38-24 at halftime.
“Hauser is a good team, and we knew it was going to be a challenge for us,” Columbus Christian coach Kevin Roth said. “We’ve been struggling this year. We were hoping to utilize our quickness with Josh (Jones) and Gabe (Ridder), which showed in spurts, but not the whole game. Overall, we are pretty young, we’ll learn from what we did tonight and come in and workout (today) and go over some things, and then get some rest.”
In the second half, Hauser went on cruise control the rest of the way. Paradise hit his final field goal, a 3-pointer, with 5:34 left in regulation and then checked out of the game.
“Sometimes kids’ confidence really helps when they just see the ball go into the basket,” Hauser coach Joe Sibbitt said. “We had some kids tonight see the ball go into the bucket more than they have been seeing it. Hopefully, that carries over and gives us some confidence going into (tonight against Milan).”
