No. 10 Hawks follow loss by taking down No. 3 G-R
Conner Hill more than holds his own defending the state’s leading scorer
REINBECK — Don’t let Conner Hill’s slight frame fool you. The kid is 5 feet, 10 inches and 125 pounds of competitor.
No challenge is too big. Not even checking the state’s most prolific scorer for 32 minutes.
Where Gladbrook-Reinbeck star Joe Smoldt went, Hill went Tuesday night, and by the time the final horn sounded, South Hamilton’s sophomore guard had proven a point.
And so had the Hawks.
“I told my dad (South Hamilton head coach Nathan Hill) that I wanted to guard (Smoldt) and he told me to take it personally,” Conner Hill said after he turned in a spectacular defensive performance to help the 10th-ranked (Class 2A) Hawks take down third-ranked (1A) Gladbrook-Reinbeck, 67-61, on the Rebels home floor. “I just watched film over and over again and that’s what I did. I took it personally.”
Smoldt, an Upper Iowa recruit who put up 42 points on Saturday in a 65-61 loss to Jesup, the Rebels first setback of the year, stepped onto the floor averaging 30.4 per game. And when his first shot hit nothing but net Conner Hill might have wondered what he had gotten himself into.
But Conner Hill more than held his own the remainder of the way while face guarding Smoldt from end line to end line. Smoldt still got his — he put up a game-high 24 points — but it took him 19 field goal attempts and nine free throws to get there. He scored 14 of his points in the fourth quarter, six in the last 29 seconds on a pair of 3-pointers as the Rebels desperately tried to play catch-up.
“Conner’s a scrapper,” older brother Collin Hill, who led the Hawks with 19 points and seven rebounds, said. “Our plan was to have him follow Smoldt everywhere he went and he made him earn every one of his points.”
It was a nice way to bounce back for South Hamilton (10-1), which dropped its only game of the season to Gilbert, 55-54, last Friday. But the casual, at times sloppy team that was on the floor against Gilbert was nowhere to be found Tuesday night.
The Hawks were crisp and they followed the game plan exactly how Nathan Hill had drawn it up.
“I couldn’t be happier with how (the players) responded after a loss,” Nathan Hill said. “I thought our attention to detail and execution of the game plan were great. Now the challenge is to keep doing that game after game going forward.”
Conner Hill also scored 13 points and Cole Berg provided a huge lift off the bench with 12 points.
“His confidence is growing off the charts right now,” Nathan Hill said of Berg. “He just gives us another option, another weapon and that’s huge for us.”
Logan Klemp pitched in nine points and Marco Balderas quietly did a bunch of everything, as he finished with eight points, seven assists, six rebounds and four steals.
Ahead 47-41 after three quarters, South Hamilton extended its lead to as many as nine in the final period on a highlight-reel reverse lay-up in transition by Logan Klemp to make it 58-49 with 1:50 remaining. Free throws were crucial down the stretch, as the Hawks knocked down 10 of 12 over the final 2:19 to fend off Smoldt, who found his shooting rhythm late, and the Rebels.
“Us making free throws was big and it made us feel like we had it in the bag the whole time,” Collin Hill said. “We knew this was going to be a tough challenge coming in here against a really good team. We played our butts off and it really showed.”
South Hamilton went with the “anyone but Smoldt” philosophy throughout much of the game. The Hawks double-teamed the all-stater in the backcourt and forced another Rebel to bring the ball up the court and the move provided big dividends.
Caden Kickbush kept Gladbrook-Reinbeck in the driver’s seat throughout much of the first quarter when 10 points, but he had just five more the rest of the way. South Hamilton turned a 16-13 deficit into a 32-30 lead at the break and then controlled the second half.
“We just did not want Smoldt to beat us,” Nathan Hill said. “We wanted to make the rest of their team try to beat us.”
The in-your-face defensive mentality led to some foul problems for the Hawks. Conner Hill and Balderas both picked up their third fouls early in the third quarter and the Rebels were in the bonus less than five minutes into the second half. But that never altered the game plan.
And when Smoldt began to show signs of weariness in the second half, Conner Hill never backed off.
“When we watched film I noticed he was tired because he never comes out, so I just knew I had to work him all night,” Conner Hill said. “I’ve never been one that gets tired. I just have a lot of adrenaline pumping and I’ve always played that way.”
So. Hamilton 67, Gl.-Reinbeck 61
Tuesday at Reinbeck
South Hamilton (10-1) — Marco Balderas 4 0-2 8, Cole Berg 4 4-8 12, Logan Klemp 3 3-4 9, Logan Peters 2 0-0 4, Quinton Grove 0 0-0 0, Collin Hill 9 1-3 19, Conner Hill 3 4-4 13, Cade Balvanz 1 0-0 2. Totals: 26 12-21 67.
Gladbrook-Reinbeck (8-2) — Walker Thede 1 0-0 2, Matt Johanssen 0 0-0 0, Caden Kickbush 6 0-0 15, Joe Smoldt 7 7-9 24, Thomas Mussig 1 0-0 2, Jackson Kiburis 1 0-0 2, Matt Roeding 4 1-5 9, Mason Skovgard 1 0-0 2, Tyler Pierce 1 3-4 5. Totals: 22 11-18 61.
So. Hamilton 13 17 17 20 — 67
Gl.-Reinbeck 16 12 13 20 — 61
3-point field goals — SH 3 (Con. Hill 3); G-R 6 (Kickbush 3, Smoldt 3). Rebounds — SH 22 (Col. Hill 7, Balderas 6). Steals — SH 7 (Balderas 4). Assists — SH 17 (Balderas 7). Team fouls — SH 19, G-R 18. Fouled out — none.