HOPE — Hauser built leads periodically during Friday night’s Mid-Hoosier Conference boys basketball matchup against Waldron.
The Mohawks, however, kept on fighting.
Waldron was never really out of the game entirely, but the Jets had clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch to secure a 57-44 victory.
“Obviously, we’re happy to get the win, but give a lot of credit to Waldron. I thought they had a good game plan,” Hauser coach Joe Sibbitt said. “They tried to control the tempo and shorten the game up a little bit, but we’re not great at speeding the game up either. We were successful in little spurts, but were never able to get that huge run to make it completely comfortable for me as a coach.”
The Jets (6-8, 2-2) executed well offensively to start the game to jump out to an 8-0 lead almost midway through the first quarter. Once the Mohawks (2-9, 0-3) started to settle down, they knocked down a couple of perimeter shots during a 8-2 to cut the lead to 10-8. A 3-pointer from Landon Asher capped off the quarter with Hauser leading 13-8.
A couple of long shots from Lucas Mitchell off the bench for Waldron made it 15-13. Jackson Paradise got in on the action for the Jets, scoring four straight points, and a Bryce Bates basket built the Hauser back up to 21-13. The Mohawks got a couple baskets from JT Johns, and a Bates basket for the Jets made it 23-17 at the half.
Hauser came out strong to start the second half and jumped to a 13-4 run to extend the lead to 36-21. Waldron didn’t go away, though, and came back with an 8-2 run to cut it to 38-29. The Jets added a free throw from Bates to make it 39-29 heading into the fourth.
Hauser extended the lead to 45-29 early in the fourth quarter. The Mohawks could not come up with a significant offensive run, which allowed the Jets to cruise to victory.
“We’re taking steps in the right direction,” Sibbitt said. “I told the kids that if we played this game a month ago, we might have found a way to lose instead of finding a way to win, so we did enough offensively and defensively to take of business at home.”
Hauser put four players in double figures. Bates finished with a game-high 16 points, Trey Johnson had 14, Asher scored 11 and Jackson Paradise added 10.
“I like to think that we as players pride ourselves in being unselfish,” Johnson said. “Anytime you can have multiple guys in double digits, you’ll normally going to have a successful night, so we did a great job.”
