Hawks avoid unsightly upset, dispatch Trojans with better second-half effort

QUINCY — If the Quincy University men’s basketball players bring the same level of effort and enthusiasm to Saturday’s matchup with Purdue Northwest as they played with Wednesday night, they have a pretty good guess how it will end.

“It won’t be pretty,” senior guard Jamaurie Coakley said.

Good thing the Hawks have two days to make an adjustment.

Quincy trailed Hannibal-LaGrange University 35-34 at the first media timeout of the second half at Pepsi Arena. A 9-2 run tilted the game in the Hawks’ favor, and they were able to finish off a 66-45 victory and avoid an unsightly upset.

“The message is we’re not good enough to roll off the truck and beat anybody,” QU coach Ryan Hellenthal said. “We almost found out the hard way. You have to give a lot of credit to Hannibal-LaGrange. They played really, really hard.

“In trying to have some success and uphold the pride and tradition of the program, you have to play to a certain standard and expectation we did not meet tonight. You survive a night like this, but you have to understand moving forward nights like this just aren’t going to work.”

There won’t be much time to sit and ponder this one.

Purdue Northwest visits Pepsi Arena at 6 p.m. Saturday as the Hawks (2-1) wrap up a four-game homestand to open the season. The Pride (1-2) play their home opener Thursday night against Indiana Northwest before hitting the road.

“Saturday is going to be a big one,” Coakley said. “I think it’s going to be a different team. We’re going to start different. We’re going to come in ready.”

Hellenthal won’t settle for another lackluster outing.

“We roll our sleeves up tomorrow and get better,” Hellenthal said. “Then we play to our standard and our expectation level on Saturday.”

It will have to be better than the first 25 minutes. The Hawks shot just 35.7 percent from the field in the first half and went 2 of 12 from 3-point range. It took an 8-2 run over the final two minutes of the half to give the Hawks a 31-24 lead.

Two turnovers and going 1 of 3 from the field in the first five minutes of the second half resulted in Quincy losing the lead for the first time.

“I didn’t like our enthusiasm and our effort,” Hellenthal said. “We settled for jump shots.”

Trailing 35-34 with 15:17 remaining in the second half turned out to be a wake-up call.

“It got tense,” Coakley said. “They came out ready to go. They came out fired up. That’s on us. Just because it’s an NAIA school, and you know how it is, a lot of our teammates came out thinking it was going to be a light one. We came out pretty flat.”

Coakley’s basket in the paint with 14:56 to go regained the lead for the Hawks, and he had six points and an assist in the tide-turning run.

Coakley finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and six assists without a turnover in 36 minutes. His ability to penetrate the lane and score, get fouled or find an open teammate changed the game. He went 10 of 12 from the line. 

“Adam (Moore) kept preaching to me,” Coakley said. “He and Silas (Crisler) kept tapping me on the shoulder and saying, ‘Keep attacking. Don’t stop. We need you right now. We’re flat right now. You’re the one who is going to drive downhill.’ Them giving me the confidence helped.”

Mark Bradshaw Jr. had 13 points off the bench, but the other four QU starters combined for just 25 points on 10-of-28 shooting from the field and 3-of-16 shooting from 3-point range.

Kaden Eirhart led HLGU (1-5) with 13 points, while Mark Twain product Grant Peters had 11 points and five rebounds and Monroe City product Bryce Stark finished with five points and five rebounds. The outcome does not count against HLGU’s record as it is consider an exhibition game for the NAIA program.