Hawks lose rematch with William Jewell, drop third straight

QUINCY — It was hard to say which was colder Thursday night: the Quincy University offense or the temperature outside Pepsi Arena.

With the starting five struggling to score, the Hawks received a bit of a bench boost in the first half as the team fought its way to being only down two at the half to William Jewell, 32-30.

But a 23 percent shooting second half doomed Quincy (13-12, 9-8 in the GLVC) to a 66-53 loss and keeping them in a dogfight to make the conference’s postseason tournament.

QU had knocked off Jewell (14-12 11-7 in the GLVC) 67-66 on Jan. 7 in Liberty, Mo., but the Cardinals are now in second place in the conference based on its seeding formula, which takes an advanced math degree to figure out.

The Hawks are currently in the sixth position and their wins over top-seeded Indianapolis and Jewell seem to have given them some weight in the rankings.

But after watching his team drop its third straight game and seeing multiple missed shots from the paint, QU coach Steve Hawkins said his team can’t afford to miss easy opportunities.

“There’s so little margin for error with this team…talking about us,” Hawkins said. “When you get into these games against teams like William Jewell and you’re in a battle, you really can’t make mistakes.”

QU’s post duo of junior Solomon Gustafson and freshman Mason Wujek each scored 8 points to lead the team as the Hawks finished the night shooting 31.7 percent from the field, including a 4-18 (22.2 percent) effort from three-point range.

“The thing that just destroyed us was…how many layups we missed,” Hawkins said. “I mean, we were point blank. We lived around the rim and the ball just would not go through…and if those dropped, we’ve got a different game. But they didn’t.”

QU hosts Truman State Saturday afternoon in its final home contest of the season. They travel to Southwest Baptist and Rockhurst next week.