By Chris Parker
Kickapoo high school has a student enrollment of 1,538 students. Hartville high school is home to 182 students.
Kickapoo has four Division I prospects in its starting lineup. Hartville likely has none.
Ultimately the only numbers that mattered on Thursday night at JQH Arena were 48 and 45. That three-point 48-45 margin would prove to be the winning margin for Class 3 Hartville over Class 6 Kickapoo.
“Any time you come up to this tournament and get a win over anybody, it’s a big deal, especially a program like Kickapoo who’s had historic success. We just feel very blessed. The kids played well,” Hartville head coach Brett Reed said. “It definitely means a lot to our community being such a small community and a tight knit community. It means a lot to these boys. These boys have been playing together since they were little and they’ve earned it.”
The first half was close throughout with Kickapoo carrying a 20-17 lead into the break. Ryce Piper led Hartville in the first half with 10 points on 50% shooting. No other Hartville player scored more than three points in the first half.
In the second half, defense and balance ruled the day for Hartville. The Eagles held Kickapoo to just five points in the third quarter while scoring 14 to take a six-point lead into the fourth quarter.
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“We just felt like Kickapoo has got a lot of weapons and they were going to be tough to guard all night long. Their depth is a lot more than ours,” Reed said. “They have a lot more kids like you talked about, so we felt like our best option to stay out of foul trouble was to slow the pace down a little bit, and have longer possessions, not stall it or anything like that, but just have some longer possessions, and try to get really good looks. The boys did that for the most part.”
“Like Coach Reed said, they (Kickapoo) have a lot of weapons, so we have to lock down on the defensive end and focus. We can control our defense. We can’t control shots going in, so we definitely focus on the defensive end,” Piper said.
Kickapoo is a team that plays well in transition, but Hartville held the Chiefs to just four fast-break points while scoring 14 points on the break themselves. For the game, Hartville held Kickapoo to 33% shooting from the field.
Piper only scored two second-half points, but that didn’t hinder the Eagles with Cody Mahan (13 points) and Braden Branstetter (12 points) stepping up to help lead Hartville.
“There’s one thing about our team you won’t get anywhere else is everybody has each other’s backs,” Piper said. “You’ll never see anything like it. When you do something bad you know your teammates are going to pick you up every single time.”
Kickapoo had its chances in the fourth quarter including in the waning seconds. Kickapoo’s Anton Brookshire was fouled with under a second left in the game. He hit the first free throw to make the score 48-45. Brookshire missed the second free throw and came up with the ball and a chance to tie from three, but the shot just missed.
Isaac Haney led Kickapoo and all scorers with 20 points. Brookshire scored 14 points in the game and crossed the 1,500-point mark for his career.
Hartville won’t be able to celebrate long with a highly anticipated matchup with fellow unbeaten and Blue & Gold champion Greenwood awaiting tomorrow night at 8 pm.
“They’re (Greenwood) good. We’ve had some battles for us over the years,” Reed said. “Right now we’re going to celebrate this one. Go home. Get up early in the morning, then we’ll get back to work.”
Greenwood beat Sunrise Christian’s varsity team 65-36 in the first game of the day. Kickapoo will face that same Sunrise Christian squad at 6 pm prior to the Greenwood-Hartville showdown.
