Hillsdale strikes back

North put his stamp on the game of defense, swatting Aragon layup attempts left and right to finish with five blocked shots. But after the Dons went on a 5-0 mini-run early in the fourth quarter to close the deficit to 10, it was North who answered by squaring up from the top of the key to crush a 3 — while crushing Aragon’s spirits along with it as the Hillsdale faithful in the southeast corner of the gym went bonkers.

“That was so fun,” North said. “You can never beat a Friday night crowd.”

The 6-7 North finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds to go with his block-a-thon.

“Callum is so fun to watch,” Hillsdale head coach Deshawn Mitchell said, “and I am so happy for him because he’s a senior, and he’s going to remember this for the rest of his life. And that’s what this is all about.”

The Knights set the tone early, responding to their only deficit of the night — an early 3-2 Aragon edge — with an 8-0 run, capped by North’s strongman and-1. Aragon closed it to a one-possession score on senior Brandon Potter’s crisp pull-up jumper from 12 feet out to make it 10-8. But Hillsdale responded with another run, this time of 8-1, with senior Freeman Lane drilling a his first of two corner 3s to finish with 12 points, including eight in the second quarter.

Hillsdale finished 6 of 13 from long range, while senior Sebastian Avina also connected for two 3s to finish with a team-high 16 points.

“Each game, it’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Mitchell said. “One week it will be the shooting team, the next week it will be the post team. We’ve just got to milk whichever way it turns. I was really happy they were making shots.”

Aragon (7-1, 15-5) was scuffling with its touch all night, shooting just 30.1% from the field on its home court.

“By far the worst shooting night,” Aragon head coach Hosea Patton said. “The percentage was probably pretty low, and it became one-dimensional. And that Hillsdale team was ready. They were ready, they understood the assignment, and they came in and took care of business. We’ve got to take our hats off to them.”

The biggest gut punch for Aragon came midway through the second quarter, when senior guard Armando Cajbon picked up his third foul. Cajbon is the Dons’ best 3-point marksman, and the guy they needed to to shoot them back from a double-digit deficit. Instead, they had to play the last four minutes of the first half without him, watching a 21-11 score turn into a 32-17 chasm by halftime.

“He needs to be on the court,” Patton said. “He did get in foul trouble, but it was the way he got the fouls. They were the cheap fouls, the ones that were reactive. So, it cost us and we had to take him out.”

Senior point guard Kaleb Brodeth seemed determined to make up for the loss of production single-handedly, driving to the hoop for two quick layups to score eight of the Dons’ nine second-quarter points. Brodeth finished with a team-high 13 points.

“He wants to do everything,” Patton said. “And he’s done some things before, and he understands that we’re lacking in an area. So, he just wants to step it up. He wants to do whatever it takes for this team.”

But the ball just wouldn’t bounce Aragon’s way. The Dons might have had a chance through the opening minutes of the second half when Hillsdale didn’t score for the first four minutes. Both teams went ice cold during that stretch, though, and it took Aragon 3 minutes, 16 seconds to finally break the seal on a Qinrun Zhang wing 3.

Zhang got to the free-throw line next time down the court — the junior guard went on to finish with 12 points — but Avina fired right back with a corner 3, and suddenly the two teams locked in a flurry of scoring exchanges. Lane finished out the quarter with a put-back off his own miss for a buzzer-beater 2 to send the Knights to the fourth leading 41-26, while frenzying the Hillsdale crowd going into the quarter break.

“They definitely came out to support tonight,” said Mitchell, who has coached at Aragon for 10 years, but is in his first season running the varsity program, and enjoyed his first rivalry win Friday. “It was really awesome. It was really cool to experience this energy. It was my first one, so I loved it.”

Both teams traded buckets at the start of the fourth quarter, and Aragon senior Elias Ausiello put some wind in his team’s sails with a 3 from up top to keep make it 43-33. But that’s when North stepped up with his unexpected long-range heroics, with his 3 sparking a 9-0 run to put the game on ice.

“Last year I took a lot more,” North said. “This year ... my 3-point percentage has not been there, lately. If it’s open, I’m going to take it. And the coaches, they trust me. And I just wanted to take it, and it went in.”

With the win, Hillsdale draws even with Aragon atop the PAL Ocean Division standings with four games to play. Aragon has the harder schedule, including third-place Woodside and fifth-place Mills. The highest standing team remaining on Hillsdale’s schedule is sixth-place South City, along with Capuchino (seventh), San Mateo (eighth) and Oceana (10th).

“It puts us right there,” Mitchell said. “But the real importance is we came together at the right time. We started to play together at the right time. I think that’s the real important thing. I think, win or lose, this team is really starting to see each other and play for each other, and that’s what I wanted from the beginning. And now that we’re doing that, I’m a happy camper.”