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Hughes powers Harding over Canfield
By ERIC FORTUNE
WARREN
After eight minutes of play, it looked like Canfield was going to be run off the court.
The Cardinals though have a knack for getting teams to play into their style of play, which is a half-court offense with a lot of different sets.
It was worked nearly to perfection and almost got Canfield over the hump against Warren Harding.
But in the Raiders used a late run and held on for a 68-59 victory in an All-American Conference, Red Tier matchup on Friday night.
The win clinched at least a tie of the Red Tier league title for the Raiders (12-6, 10-1).
“I’ve probably said this,” Harding coach Andy Vlajkovich said. “I don’t know how many games I’ve coached here, but I’ve talked about us being able to concentrate. It’s not really happening. We guarded well in the first quarter. We didn’t for periods in the second half.
“It’s just a yo-yo right now. We’re just up-and-down, up-and-down, up-and-down. The good news is they did want to win. They are competitive kids. When we need to get what we need to get, we seem to get it.”
Mikes Hughes led the Raiders with 25 points. Every time the Raiders needed a big shot to stop the bleeding, Hughes seemed to answer the call.
“I was just trying to keep us together,” Hughes said. “I knew someone was going to have to step up in crunch time, so I said, ‘Why not me?’ ”
After trailing 17-6 after one, the game changed drastically when the Cardinals (8-10, 5-5) started the second quarter on an 8-2 run to get within five at the 5:33 mark of the quarter.
Hughes’ 3 at the end of the quarter pushed the Harding advantage back to 30-21 at the half.
The Raiders started the third quarter hot and led by as many as 16 with Hughes and Lynn Bowden scoring 14 of the 17 points in the quarter.
Bowden finished with 19 points. He made four foul shots with the Raiders clinging to a seven-point lead in the final minute.
The Raiders made 8 of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter.
“We just had to lock in,” Hughes said. “I knew we were going to need them coming down the stretch. When they started cutting down the lead, we knew we had to get to the line a lot.”
The Cardinals again cut into the Harding lead with a 13-4 run to end the third quarter making it 47-40.
Jake Cummings scored 10 of his team high 20 points in the third quarter where he completed two four-point plays as the Cardinals methodically cut into the Harding lead.
The Cardinals tied the game at 54 with a 14-7 run after Ian McGraw made three free throws with 2:50 to play.
“Looking at the game and it could have been really bad at that point in time, but we battled back,” Canfield coach Todd Muckleroy said. “Some of the layups we missed in that first quarter, we’d love to have back.”
The Raiders regained control with a 10-0 run7.
“I just think we kind of locked down a little bit,” Vlakovich said. “We finally got some stops. All night, we had defensive breakdowns all over the place. They punished us by making some shots. We finally just locked in and were able to get those stops.”