Hutch pulls away from Garden City in second half

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Garden City, KS-For one half on Wednesday, the Broncbusters looked every bit like a team that could make some serious noise come March. But a second half littered with mistakes, cost Garden City again.

Josh Baker hit five 3's and scored 24 points, Tyler Brown tallied 16 in 38 minutes, and No. 25 Hutchinson handed Garden City their seventh straight loss with a 91-72 victory at Conestoga Arena.

"We were just flat in the second half, and they just jumped on us," Head Coach Patrick Nee said afterwards. "Then we compound things with bad shots. And that seems to happen a lot; when we are not playing well, we take bad shots."

It's Garden City's first seven-game losing streak sine 2013 when they dropped eight in a row. They also fell three games below .500.

"It's just getting guys to play consistently that's going to help us get out of this," Nee said.

In the first half, Garden City stayed right with the high-powered Blue Dragons despite shooting just 36 percent (10-of-28). Naj Ashley-Emory grabbed a rebound and sped past the entire Hutchinson defense for a two-handed layup, Daishaun Woods swished two free throws, and Tahlik Chavez buried a 3-pointer, giving the Broncbusters their largest lead of the night, 28-23 with 6:20 to play in the half.

"Our guys played with better energy tonight," Nee explained. "We seemed to be high spirited coming out of the locker room."

But what has turned into a repeated theme throughout the season, Garden City could never stretch the lead. Baker answered back with a long ball, Derrick Bryant's turnover led to a Saquan Singleton runout dunk, and Fred Odhiambo rattled the rim with a two-handed flush, putting Hutchinson in front 38-36. Moments later, Clarence King, who Broncbuster assistant Mike "Scoop" Harding coached last year at Lawrence High School, dropped in back-to-back layups, and just like that, Garden City's once five-point lead had turned into a six-point deficit, 42-36 with 18 seconds remaining. Only Kaleb Favors' three-point play quashed the Blue Dragons run, slicing Hutchinson's lead to 42-39 at the break.

"Things are going good, and then it's like take your turn," Nee said. "One guy takes a bad shot, then another guy is looking for his. That's been our problem."

And things definitely snowballed in the second half.

Hutchinson hit Garden City with a devastating haymaker to begin the final period. Baker cashed in a smooth 3-pointer from the wing, then knocked down a foul-line jumper over Chavez, NJCAA Player of the Week Majok Kuath threw down a vicious jam, and Baker finished off a three-point play, capping a 14-0 run that put Hutchinson up 59-41 with 13:31 to play. After Chavez got Garden City back to within 10 with a 3 followed by a layup and two free throws, the Blue Dragons crushed any hopes of a comeback, using a 10-3 surge, polished off by Brown's and-1 that had Hutchinson up 20. The lead swelled to as many as 22 following Baker's fifth trey with 2:12 to go.

"We have to figure out a way to limit these runs," Nee said. "Every game it seems like we're giving up 12-0 and 14-0 runs. If we can cut those in half, we will be better off. We have to continue to run our offense."

The Blue Dragons shot 53 percent from the floor (32-of-61), the 10^th time this year they've shot 50 percent or better. Singleton scored 13 points and pulled down six rebounds in 23 minutes, and King chipped in 12 off the bench.

Chavez led the way for Garden City with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting, but the rest of the team was just 14-of-38 (37 percent). Favors tallied 10 points and seven boards, and Ashley-Emory added nine in 17 minutes off the bench. But the storyline over the final 20 minutes was turnovers. Garden City gave it away 12 times in the second half. The end result: they were outscored 49-33.  

Next up: Garden City at Northwest Tech-Saturday, Jan. 18-8:30 p.m. on 99.9 FM; westernkansasnews.com/kwkr and KWKR mobile app