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Hersey’s a quick study, wins at Prospect

Hersey used the lessons it learned in their loss earlier this week to turn the tables on Prospect 58-39 on Friday in Mt. Prospect.

After being beat to almost every loose ball and rebound on Wednesday against St. Viator, the Huskies turned their game up a notch to hand Prospect its first loss in MSL East play.

“I give our kids a lot of credit,” Hersey coach Steve Messer said. “We just didn’t finish plays on Wednesday. Tonight we did. When you play a team like Viator who is fast and all over the place, it helps us.”

Hersey (8-10, 3-4) was not making the plays early as Prospect jumped all over the Huskies. Hitting on three long-range bombs, the Knights (11-8, 6-1) grabbed 12-5 advantage on a trey by Ernest Kiseliovas (11 points).

That’s when the Huskies began to make their move.

Playing a tough man-to-man to defense, Hersey, thanks to its length, kept the Knights out the paint. Meanwhile, Hersey’s Brandon Hatten ignited the offense as Hersey closed to 14-12 after the first quarter.

“I just wanted to come out and give us some energy,” said Hatten, who finished with 12 points. “We talk about starting out strong. But if we don’t, someone has to start us up.”

With Hatten’s energy on offense and a defense that continued push Prospect away from the basket, Hersey slowly began to strangle the Knights, who also got into foul trouble early.

“They did an outstanding job on us,” Prospect coach John Camardella said. “They switched a lot of our screens tonight. And we had three guys with two fouls each, and that hurt as well.”

Hersey took advantage of all of it. Trailing 16-12 early in the second quarter, the Huskies went on 10-3 run to lead 22-19 on their way to a 26-23 lead at the half.

“We were just more patient on offense,” said Hersey’s Max Heeren, who finished with 12 points. “We had long possessions against them. We knew if we ran long possessions, we could get good shots and they got tired on the defensive end.”

After Prospect closed to 28-26 on a one of four 3-pointers by Kyle Beyak (12 points), Hersey’s Alex Mueller took over. He nailed a 3 and hit a basket as the Huskies score d 9 unanswered points to lead 37-26 with 2:20 left in the third quarter.

“This is how we have been playing in practice,” said Mueller, who scored all of his 12 points in the second half. “We had lots of energy tonight, and we kept it going which is something we have struggled with all year.”

The Huskies continued that energy level as Prospect, which converted just 26 percent (9-for-35) of its shots in the final three quarters, never got closer than 8 points from there.

The Huskies also put the clamps on Prospect’s Bobby Frasco and Danny Thomas. Both fouled out, with Frasco scoring 8 points and Thomas 2.

“We played very well with the lead tonight,” said Messer, whose team held a 29-19 rebounding edge and forced 13 turnovers. “Every kid that played for us did something positive. They all worked well together and that was a focus point for us.”

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