Sports
Illness, Injuries Sap Hartland Boys Hoops in Loss Against Brighton
Bulldogs defeat Eagles 62-46.
BRIGHTON — Benjamin Kil of Brighton scored a game-high 24 points to power the Bulldogs over a short-handed Hartland team 62-46 Tuesday to remain unbeaten on the season.
“We had an ugly game that we won," Brighton head coach Tony Sweet said. "They came to play tonight and they were without their best player. They stepped up and played well. We played well enough to win.”
Hartland had two key players out of the line-up from the start and lost a third during the game. Team leading scorer Matt Poches was sick, starting point guard and Cam Fritz, who hasn’t played since the first game of the season, fractured his tibia grabbing a rebound in warm-ups. During the game, Kevin Hughes went down in the second quarter and didn’t return.
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“It really hurts when your starting point guard goes down," Hartland head coach Frank Leppek said. "We got in a foul situation (in the second half), we had some turnovers, we panicked and they got the lead. We’re running out of basketball players in a sense.”
Despite the loss of Poches, a gritty Eagles team lead the game going into the half. Anthony Villar helped Hartland (5-4, 1-3) scored seven points in the first quarter. Hartland also shot 16 free throws in the first half to Brighton's two that Sweet attributed to the Eagles' aggressive play
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Kil kept Brighton (9-0, 4-0) in the contest, though, with 13 points in the first half, 11 of those in the opening quarter.
In the third quarter, Brighton battled back and outscored Hartland 15-5 with the Eagles missing their first four shots.
“In the second half, we turned our aggressive play into points,” Sweet added.
Hartland tried to rally with its three-point shooting to start the fourth. The Eagles made their first three attempts with two from Nelson Cagle and the third from Clay Lineberry. But they missed their next five shots, all from beyond the arc.
Cagle finished with 12 points, not only a team high for the game but his career high at Hartland. Ryan Sharpe added six points and seven rebounds for Hartland. Treston Jones scored eight points and nabbed seven boards for Brighton.
Brighton travels to Pinckney, which entered Tuesday's play undefeated in the KLAA, on Friday for a 7 p.m. game while the Eagles head to Howell for a 7 p.m. game against the Highlanders.
