Shooting blues hinder Hawks

Free throw shooting blues sunk the Blue Hawk boys last week in Florence.

Connecting on only four of 17 free throw attempts, when only one or two more conversions would have made all the difference, coach Jake Mickelson and his cold-shooting Hawks fell 38-37 to the Falcons in a non-conference game Thursday.

Mickelson said the Hawks fell behind early in Florence and trailed at one point 20-5 before fighting their way back. The Hawks actually led by four points in the fourth quarter before their poor free throw shooting finally sunk the ship.

“We had our chances to put them away at the line,” he said, “but we made only one of six free throws in the fourth quarter, and that was too much to overcome.”

A couple of the players for Florence also made this loss a little tougher than normal for Mickelson to take.

The leading scorer for the Falcons in the game was Mickelson’s cousin Parker Hopsinpiller, who scored 11 points, including three 3-pointers. What’s more, Mickelson’s younger brother Beau Neal scored five points, including another unlikely 3-pointer.

“I doubt if those two will hit many more threes this season,” Mickelson joked. “But they made them against us and I will probably never hear the end of it.”

Although the loss hurt, the game was a breakout effort for sophomore Cody Burk, who led all scorers in the game with 16 points on eight of eight shooting from the field. Grant Lundberg led the Hawks on the glass with seven rebounds and Nate Wilhite dished out three assists.

Now 0-4 in non-conference play, the Hawks will host Plains Thursday and will visit Troy for their first District 7B conference game of the season Friday.