Geneva continues surge by knocking off Hersey
A weeknight nonconference game is not the ideal venue to fire up the home team.
With the students still on break and a small crowd on hand, Geneva was able to carry the momentum from winning the Chuck Dayton Tournament in DeKalb into its matchup with Hersey.
The Vikings never trailed, taking leads of 8-1, 15-5, and 25-9 on the way to a 61-45 win in Geneva.
Michael Lawrence scored 21 points and K.J. McNeive added 16 for Geneva.
Jonathan Ryg led Hersey with 11 points.
After going up 20-9 in the second quarter, Geneva led by double digits the rest of the way. Every time Hersey would threaten, the Vikings hit a couple of clutch shots.
"I thought we executed on offense," said Geneva coach Scott Hennig. "We were able to get it inside. We got [Max Menninga] in foul trouble, which was great. We were able to keep pounding them. We hit some timely shots in the third quarter."
When the Huskies got within 30-17 just after the break, Lawrence hit back-to-back 3-pointers and added a driving layup for a personal 8-0 run and a 38-17 Geneva lead.
"I feel like after our win at the tournament, we really came together, played together, and we know that these are big wins for what comes ahead," McNeive said. "We just want to get every win that we can."
Despite the sparse crowd, the Vikings were able to create their own energy.
"We found some things that are really working for us and then it just comes down to locking in in warmups and coming out and treating every game as serious as our last game," said Lawrence.
Lawrence added 5 assists and 3 rebounds. Tommy Diamond had 9 points and 5 rebounds, and Hudson Kirby scored 6 points off the bench for Geneva.
For Hersey, Menninga still finished with 8 points despite foul trouble. Quinn Mullen added 7 points and Jared Ryg 6 for the Huskies.
After a slow-paced first half that saw Geneva lead 27-13 at intermission, the tempo picked up in the third quarter. Lawrence scored 11 points in the quarter as the Vikings maintained the lead. The Huskies missed just 1 field-goal attempt in the quarter, making 5 of 6, but were still outscored by 2.
Geneva shot 60% for the game (24 for 40). But Hersey was able to stay in the game at the free-throw line. The Huskies shot 30 freebies to 9 for the home team, although they made just 16 of those attempts.