In playoff basketball, how you finish is more important than how you start.
And on Tuesday night, to open their postseason run, the Hillsdale College men's basketball team put together a truly dominant finish to beat visiting Cedarville, 87-57, in G-MAC Quarterfinal action.
The Chargers put up 50 points in the second half, shooting 53.6% from the floor and 53.8% from 3-point range to blow open what had been a competitive game, turning a 10-point lead into a 30-point rout of the Yellow Jackets.
Hillsdale seized control before halftime, shaking off a slow start and breaking open a game that was tied 19-19 with 7:23 to go in the first half, outscoring the Yellow Jackets 18-8 to open up an advantage.
After the break, however, was when Hillsdale really poured it on. The Chargers scored the first two baskets of the second half and never looked back, pushing the lead to 20 six minutes in and stretching the advantage to 30 with six minutes to play.
Hot shooting, with the Chargers going 11 of 25 from deep, helped Hillsdale build the lead, but it was the Chargers' work defensively that allowed them to dominate the game. Hillsdale held Cedarville to 23 points below their season average, stymieing the G-MAC's best scoring offense entering this night's contests. Cedarville's star, Jayvon Maughmer, put up 24 points, but the Yellow Jackets couldn't find any other secondary scoring to work with, as no other player got in double figures in the game.
Offensively, the Chargers once again had great balance. Senior Jack Gohlke led all scorers with 19 points and chipped in seven rebounds, and Peter Kalthoff added 18 points and six rebounds as well. Sophomore Joe Reuter chipped in 14 points, seven rebounds and three assists, and sophomore Eric Radisevic had a big night off the bench, scoring 12 points in 11 minutes while shooting 5 of 6 from the floor and two for two from long range.
Sophomore Charles Woodhams added eight points and four rebounds off the bench as well, Kyle Goessler chipped in seven points, four rebounds and four assists and Cole Nau added six points and five assists.
Third-seeded Hillsdale is now 23-5 overall on the season and advances to the Final Four in the G-MAC Tournament, hosted by top-seeded Walsh University, where a huge test awaits on Friday night in the form of second-seeded Ashland, the only team to beat Hillsdale twice this season, and one of only two squads to score 80 on the Chargers, doing so in both meetings. If Hillsdale can solve the riddle of Ashland, a spot in the program's first G-MAC Tournament title game since 2018 awaits, but the Chargers will have to play their best to beat a red-hot Eagles squad. More details including game time and opportunities to purchase tickets will be posted on hillsdalechargers.com tomorrow.
Photo by Isabella Sheehan