HURON — The Huron Tigers dropped their fourth straight game Tuesday night, suffering a 75-41 drubbing at the hands of the Harrisburg Tigers, at Huron Arena.
“We flat out got whipped tonight,” said Huron coach Jon Schouten after the game, “and that’s putting it politely. They beat us in every way possible tonight.”
From the start, Harrisburg got along better with the Huron Arena rims than did the home team. The visitors jumped out to a 22-14 lead after the first quarter, largely on the hot right hand of 5-foot-10-inch senior Nick Hoyt. Hoyt was three-of-four from behind the arc in the quarter as the team shot 9-14 from the field.
On the other end of the floor, Huron was out of sync on offense, hitting only 5-14 from the floor, with only two from behind the arc.
Things did not improve for Huron in the second quarter, as Harrisburg scored the first seven points of the period to stretch the lead to 15 points. A free throw from Teegan Evers and a three by Nathan Boehrns got Huron back to within 11, but then Hoyt and Conner Geddes stroked long three-pointers on back-to-back possessions and the lead jumped right back to 17 points. The teams traded points the rest of the way in the half, and Harrisburg took a 42-24 lead to the break.
Huron came out focused on attacking the basket to start the third quarter, as Tanner Evers shot four free throws and Kobe Busch shot six over the first four minutes of the quarter, hitting seven of the charity tosses.
Harrisburg, however, got threes from Cale Murphy and Isaac Brower and a free throw from Blair Slaughter to maintain the lead.
With the score 49-31 in the quarter, Harrisburg slammed the door, locked it and then pounded in a couple nails, as the visitors ran 12 straight points to push the lead to 30-points, effectively putting the exclamation point on the game.
Hoyt led all scorers in the game with 17 points, including five three pointers, as Harrisburg shot 52 percent from the field for the game, including a 12-23 performance behind the arc. Brower came off the bench to score 12 points, while Geddes added 11 off the bench. Slaughter and Brayden Phipps each added 11 points and Phipps led the Harrisburg rebounders with seven.
Huron got 11 points each from Teegan Evers and Busch. Tanner Evers and Busch each grabbed five rebounds.
The double-digit margin allowed both coaches to empty their benches, as all of the players got a little varsity experience before the final horn.
“You could say that it was a quick turn-around from going toe-to-toe with Lincoln on Saturday, but that is an excuse,” Schouten said. “We weren’t prepared tonight to face their zone and that is on me. I need to do better. I thought we were ready, but we weren’t”
Huron is on the road Thursday at Pierre, then travels to winless Aberdeen before heading West River to take on Spearfish and Sturgis.
“Our goal is to be in the discussion for a state title at the end of the year and after tonight we have a really, really long way to go to make that happen,” Schouten said. “I’m not concerned about getting ready for Pierre. Right now I am more concerned over what we need to do to take care of ourselves.”
