Knights stay in the hunt

Hillsdale, on the other hand, was one of four teams with 3-1 records and one of four teams one game behind division-leading Menlo-Atherton. If the Knights have any illusions of contending for the South title, Tuesday against the Vikings was must-win.

Making things worse for Hillsdale was the fact the Knights were coming off a disappointing 60-58 non-league loss to El Camino and were missing sophomore wing Calvin Mader-Clark, who was out with the flu.

So with the loss to El Camino and Mader-Clark, the Knights came out a bit slow. But they found their stride in the second quarter, using the first of two 16-points quarters to pull away for a 52-33 win over the Vikings.

“We definitely knew it would be a methodical game with Mills so patient on offense,” said Hillsdale head coach Brett Stevenson. “We had to be patient.”

And despite missing Mader-Clark, the Knights still had a major weapon in Shawn Cotton, Jr. The senior guard did a little bit of everything against Mills. He finished with a game-high 18 points on 8-for-15 shooting, grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds, dished out 5 assists and came up with 2 steals.

“I thought he did a good job of facilitating the offense against the zone,” Stevenson said of Cotton. “He’s assumed a lot of the (point guard) responsibilities.”

Oliver Crank added 9 points for Hillsdale (4-1 PAL South, 21-5 overall), which also got 7 points from Tyler Berkson.

Mills (0-5, 3-14) was led by Michael Matsuno, who finished with 14 points. Jaden Tung added 6 points on a pair of 3-pointers.

Mills took its slow-down game to the extreme in the first half, incurring a shot-clock violation on its first possession. The Vikings passed the ball around the perimeter and also got it into the post, but no one, other than Matsuno and Tung, seemed confident enough to shoot the ball as they finished with just 7 first-half points: 5 in the first quarter and 2 in the second.

“We got off to a slow start,” said Mills head coach Rick Hanson. “We played better in the second half.”

Hillsdale seemed to be lulled to sleep by the Vikings in the opening quarter as they managed to score only 8 points. Cotton opened the scoring with a corner 3, before hitting Crank for a 3 of his own. Crank followed with a jumper from the middle of the lane to close out the scoring for the quarter.

In the second, the Knights started getting their running game going. Cotton opened the scoring with a slash to the hoop, but was countered by a Mills layup from Taine Dioro.

But when Berkson canned a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired, it kicked off a 14-0 run over the final 5:41 of the half that saw Hillsdale turn a 10-7 lead into a 24-7 advantage at halftime.

“We’ve been way more uptempo than in the past. Sometimes (a slow start) is because it’s the 5:30 Wednesday game,” Stevenson said. “Second quarter, we definitely woke up.”

It was the first of two clock-beating 3s from Berkson, who hit another in the third quarter. Two weeks ago in an 86-53 win over Capuchino, Berkson went off for seven 3s in the fourth quarter.

“Tyler has really worked on his game,” Stevenson said. “”I’m proud of him.”

Mills made a run early in the third quarter to make a game of it. Matsuno, who came into the game ranked third in the PAL South with an average of 15 points per game in league play, knocked down a pair of free throws. He followed that with a jumper and after Cotton scored a layup off the press break, the first of three straight baskets for him, Matsuno came back with a 3-pointer, cutting the Mills deficit to 12, 26-14, with six minutes remaining in the third period.

But neither Matsuno nor the rest of the Vikings could maintain the pace. While they would outscored Hillsdale 16-12 in the quarter, the Knights still led 36-23 going into the fourth quarter.

Hillsdale opened the final period by outscoring Mills 10-3 to lead 42-26 with 6:05 remaining and it was bench time the rest of the way. Hillsdale’s Jonathan Wise scored 6 points and grabbed 4 rebounds in about six minutes of action off the bench in the fourth.