HARTLAND — Midway through the second half of Friday night’s game, the Hartland boys basketball team was on a roll.
Miles McDonald hit an ungainly 3-pointer to end the third quarter, and Connor Harris hit another to start the fourth to give the Eagles a 35-25 lead.
But this came against a Pinckney team known for tenacious defense and its jackrabbits on the floor, and before the Eagles could settle in, Mitch Bragg had hit a 3 and Kolton Pavlicek had scored a pair of fast-break buckets, cutting the Eagles lead to 35-32 with most of the fourth to go.
“They never give up,” Hartland coach Kevin Blouin said of the Pirates defense. “They never give up. They never say die. When you think you can exhale, they take advantage of it, and that’s what they did.”
But the Eagles hung in there, taking advantage of that aggressiveness, too, drawing fouls and hitting 10 of 17 free throws down the stretch to seal a 45-39 victory.
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“We had some unforced errors, too,” Pinckney coach Tom Reason said. “They (Hartland) weren’t doing much to create them. I think we had five turnovers in the fourth and we were 8-for-17 shooting free throws. We’re leaving points on the floor. We’re not going to shoot 100 percent, but we shouldn’t shoot 42 percent, either.”
Before the game, Reason had talked about Hartland’s sizable height advantage, and 6-6 junior Justin Gigliotti proved him prophetic.
He had several key rebounds, but also hurt Pinckney at the free throw line. He was 5-for-6 at the line and finished with 11 points.
Miles McDonald was Hartland’s Mr. Outside, hitting a shot just before the buzzer at halftime and his 3 to finish the third. He finished with a team-high 17 points.
“He had a good night,” Blouin said. “Miles plays 100 mph all of the time, and that’s what I love about him. He’s got one speed, and that’s ‘go.’ He really stepped up, hit some shots and did a good job.”
Another key was point guard Carson Miller, who handled the ball well against a Pinckney press that sometimes saw the Pirates put three guards on him.
“I think Carson handled the pressure really well,” Blouin said. “Pinckney makes it extremely difficult at the point, and I thought (Miller) did a beautiful job staying focused, even when he made a mistake here and there.”
Pavlicek often was the beneficiary of those mistakes. He finished with 17 points before fouling out, including all seven Pirates points in the third quarter.
Pinckney rallied to tie the game at 39-39 before being forced to foul. Hartland’s final 10 points came at the line.
“We made them when we had to,” Blouin said. “You’d like to make every one, but they focused in and realized it was going to come down to free throws, and they stepped up.”
The win lifted the Eagles (6-5 overall, 3-3 KLAA West) above .500.
“We talked a lot about this game and how it could springboard us forward,” Blouin said. “We came out and got the job done at home.”
Pinckney dropped to 4-8 overall, 1-5 in the West.
“We’re a little banged up,” Reason said. “We’ve got Brighton on Tuesday and Howell on Thursday, which will be tough. These close losses are tough. Except for the Howell game (a loss), we’ve been within two with three minutes to go.”
