The visiting Hillsdale Knights basketball team prevented the Aragon Dons from completing their comeback, and topped the Dons 53-51 Friday night.
The Knights led by 17 in the third quarter, but the Dons worked their way back to tie the game at 51. Hillsdale senior Dante Fontenot hit two free throws with 8.5 seconds left to give the Knights the lead, and the Dons failed to score on their final possession.
“We put in a lot of work with our free throws,” Fontenot said. “Yesterday we had an extra 30 minutes on free throws. Coach was like ‘That’s terrible. We need to keep doing free throws.’ It paid off.”
“It was a good effort from the boys,” Aragon coach Sam Manu said. “There was no quit in them and they fought the whole way.”
The Dons (5-13, 1-5 PAL-South) started using a full-court press in the second half, and it paid off. Aragon freshman Davion Cox stole the ball repeatedly, and scored all 10 of his points in the second half.
“For Davion [our system] fits his skill set very well and it’s good to see our guys enjoy that and have success playing that full-court system," Manu said.
The game’s change of pace definitely affected the Knights’ rhythm.
“We lost a lot of composure in the second half,” Hillsdale coach Brett Stevenson said. “Our age definitely showed, and obviously we had tempo issues and we weren’t able to settle down and play our style.”
“Offensively we just didn’t execute that well,” Hillsdale senior guard Colin Low said. “I feel like we just weren’t running our stuff and we lost composure.”
The Knights (13-5, 4-2 PAL-South) got their points from a variety of players, with six players making at least two field goals each. Senior Adam Cook led the team in scoring with 12 points, and Low added 11 points. He was 6-for-6 from the free throw line.
“We talk about being impatient as a young team, and we were still impatient,” Manu said. “Sometimes with a young team it’s hard to mature quickly. But it was a good game, good experience for them, and they can put that in their hip pocket and work on it.”
Aragon senior guard Billy Mason led all scorers with 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including a 4-for-10 effort from 3-point range. Sixteen of those points came in the second half.
“It feels awesome," Fontenot said. "I just want to give it to my team though. At the end we could have easily got mad at each other and fought with each other, but we stuck with it. It wasn’t pretty, but we got the win.”
The Dons will face the visiting Sequoia Cherokees next Wednesday, while the Knights will host the Burlingame Panthers.
