Basketball Gohlke ties school record, Chargers drop first home game of season

By Christian Peck-Dimit Associate Editor

Despite a program record-tying game from fifthyear guard Jack Gohlke, the Hillsdale men’s basketball team dropped its first home game of the season to the Ashland Eagles, 82-73, loosening the Chargers’ grip on the conference lead.

Gohlke knocked down 10 threes, tying Tim Homan’s record set in December of 2007. Hillsdale, however, gave up a season-high 82 points to Ashland, and was unable to dig itself out of a 15-point halftime deficit.

Following the loss, the Chargers dropped six spots to No. 15 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches national poll.

After shooting 1-of-7 from outside in the first half, Gohlke went an incredible 9-of-12 from three after halftime, finishing just one point shy of the program’s record for most points scored in a half.

“It’s tough to have that type of performance come in a loss, and I would take a big portion of the blame

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for that game because in the first half obviously I did not perform that well,” Gohlke said.

The historic game moves Gohlke into the Hillsdale record books in other spots as well. With 69 made threes so far this year, he needs just three more to move into the eighth spot for most threes made in a single season. Additionally, he broke onto the top 10 list for most threes made in a career with 155.

“I’ve always enjoyed my time here and I looked up to some of those guys that came before me,” Gohlke said. “So to know some of those guys, those really good shooters that have been here before, trying to repeat what they’ve done and pass them in the record books is definitely pretty cool.”

Despite Gohlke’s performance, however, the Chargers were unable to complete a second-half comeback, and are now tied with the Walsh Cavaliers at the top of the G-MAC.

“I don’t think anyone was particularly happy with how we played and how we performed, especially in the first half,” head coach John Tharp said. “I think everybody was pretty emotional and upset.”

Hillsdale, who maintains a top-10 scoring defense in the nation, allowed Ashland to shoot over 50% from the field and above 40% from outside.

The Chargers will have a chance to even the score with the Eagles in a few weeks, when the teams will match up in Ashland for the second-to-last game of the regular season.

“Defensively, we just need to make sure that going into that game, we’re going to key in on the performance their point guard had, he played really well and keyed their whole offense,” Gohlke said. “Overall just sticking with our matchups and sticking to our gameplan a little better than we did this time.”

In the meantime, Hillsdale will have its only matchup of the regular season against Walsh on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The winner would not only take sole possession of the

G-MAC lead, but it would also hold the tiebreaker over the loser, effectively giving it a two-game lead with four games remaining.

“Walsh is an outstanding basketball team with a terrific guard that runs the show,” Tharp said. “They shoot the ball particularly well, they have an inside game, they’re guarding at a really high level, we have to be ready to compete and execute.”

Unlike most weeks of the season, the team didn’t have a game on Saturday after its Thursday contest, and will have a full week between games.

“It’s tough having a buy at this time in the year, you’d probably be better off getting back on the floor on Saturday to get back on the floor and compete,” Tharp said.

Some of the players said, while they would have preferred to play right away, they were able to use the time to rest and regroup.

“We can reset mentally, I think this will be a good break for us,” sophomore Joe Reuter said.