Hawks fight way back into win column with resilient second-half effort against Saints

QUINCY — For the first time in quite some time, the Quincy University men’s basketball players were able to spend a Saturday night without lamenting what had taken place earlier in the day.

“You can just chill knowing you won a game,” freshman guard Max Booher said.

That hadn’t happened since Jan. 20.

Saturday afternoon, on a day celebrating the 75th anniversary of Pepsi Arena, the Hawks put an end to a nine-game losing streak, shooting 63.3 percent from the field in the second half of an 82-75 victory over Maryville in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.

“I felt like we needed that and it was really big for our team morale,” QU junior guard Camren Kincaid said. “It always feels good to win.”

This one was more a sigh of relief than a fist pump of excitement because it had been a long, head-scratching month without putting a check in the win column.

“When you go through a stretch and don’t win, it makes you appreciate when you do,” QU coach Brad Hoyt said. “I’m not good at that. I’m not good at appreciating the wins because I’m worried about the turnovers, I’m worried about late-game scenarios, I’m worried about everything. It’s just the way that I’m wired.

“But I’m really, really glad for our guys. We did some pretty good things in the second half, and hopefully we can use it going into our final week.”

All it takes is duplicating the second-half effort.

Quincy (9-17, 4-14 GLVC) trailed 38-34 at halftime after shooting 35.1 percent from the field. In fact, Booher went 6 of 11 from the field in the first 20 minutes (54.5 percent), while the rest of the team went 7 of 26 (26.9 percent). Yet, there wasn’t a sense of panic at halftime knowing shots would eventually fall.

“(Hoyt) wanted us to trust our stuff and not really try to score on our own,” Kincaid said. “It was about trusting each other and trusting the plays that we have.”

The Saints (7-19, 3-15 GLVC) extended their lead to 55-43 — their largest lead of the game — in the first 4 ½ minutes of the second half before the Hawks ripped off an 8-1 run to make it a two-possession game. It took another six minutes before Quincy tied the game at 63 on a Joshua Bocher jumper in the lane.

Jake Hamilton’s 3-pointer with five minutes to play gave the Hawks a 66-63 lead.

“We talked in a couple of huddles that there was no way we were giving up the lead,” Booher said. “We have to play as hard as we can, just give it all we got.”

The lead reached seven at 70-63 as Quincy completed an 11-0 run, and the advantage dipped to less than five only once thereafter.

“It was kind of like, ‘We’re back in there, we’re back in the fight, we’re back on top,’” Kincaid said. “So it was, ‘Why not win? Finish this game out, finish this season strong.’”

Kincaid helped do that, scoring on three consecutive drives to the basket in the final 90 seconds and then draining a pair of free throws with 15 seconds remaining. The Springfield, Ill., product finished with 16 points, six rebounds and six assists.

“He had a little bulldog to him,” Hoyt said of Kincaid.

All of the Hawks did, especially defensively in the second half as they limited the Saints to 2-of-12 shooting from 3-point range.

“It took a lot of effort, a lot of unselfishness,” Kincaid said. “We were really locked in on the defensive end, especially on the little things like our rotations. We were clicking for the first time in a while.”

Booher finished with a game-high 23 points, making 5 of 10 treys, while Bocher finished with 11 points and freshman swingman Tiernan Stynes had eight points, 10 rebounds and five assists.

“He just plays so hard,” Hoyt said of Stynes. “He’s that guy that is going to develop into a lot of fun over the next couple of years.”

That process begins when the regular season ends next Saturday following a final home game against Indianapolis. For now, the Hawks can breathe a little easier knowing what it’s like to be back in the win column.

“You’re constantly worrying about what’s going wrong, what are we doing wrong, all of those things,” Booher said. “It’s nice to relax and say we finally got one.”