While it was not the result they were looking for on senior night, courtwarming and the regular season finale, the St. Clair Bulldogs quickly focused on the future following Friday’s boys basketball loss to Hillsboro.
St. Clair (13-13) lost its home contest to the Hawks, 52-35.
“This was a game to help us get ready for districts,” said St. Clair Head Coach Casey Korn. “We played an OK first quarter. We were unprepared for their defense and that’s my fault. Not practicing (due to snow days) didn’t help.”
The Bulldogs won their Class 4 District 9 Tournament opener Monday at Pacific over Union, 66-53. They play Borgia in the semifinals Thursday at 6 p.m.
Hillsboro (19-7) is the top seed for this week’s Class 4 District 3 Tournament at De Soto.
The Hawks held leads of 15-13 after one quarter, 27-20 at halftime and 41-28 after three quarters.
Neyko Dominguez led the Bulldogs in the scoring column with 14 points to go with four rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Adam Brott added five points and six rebounds. Austin Gotway also scored five points.
Ben Feddersen finished with four points and five rebounds. Brandon York also scored four points and grabbed two rebounds.
Evan Powell had three points and two rebounds. Evan Murphy collected two points and four rebounds. Damon Arnold had one point.
“I saw good things from Evan Powell. He played with energy when he was in the game,” Korn said. “We didn’t get to the 50-50 balls and they converted each time they got an extra possession.”
Taylor Hassell, a 5-9 senior guard, paced the Hawks with 18 points, five assists and three steals.
Austin Weber added 13 points. Jake Thebeau scored 12 points.
Hillsboro was 9-17 from the free-throw line. St. Clair was 4-11.
The loss was the third straight for the Bulldogs, who owned a four-game winning streak before that.
St. Clair shared the Four Rivers Conference championship with Sullivan with a 6-1 record.
“Overall, we had a pretty good regular season,” Korn said. “Hopefully we can bring our best game to the table this week.”
