Hammond time
Ending regular season with win vs. Valparaiso, Wildcats hasn’t lost since opener
Hammond coach Larry Moore Jr. told his players after a one-point loss to Lawrence North in the opener that they wouldn’t lose a game the rest of the regular season.
Moore said after the Wildcats’ 60-44 victory against Valparaiso on Friday that he didn’t know whether that actually was going to happen.
He just knew his team was really good after hanging with North, which is ranked No. 3 in Class 4A in the poll by The Associated Press and was No. 1 at the time.
Moore’s players took his words to heart. Hammond hasn’t lost since.
“It was wishful thinking when I said it, but when you play the No. 1 team that close, you know you can be really good,” Moore said.
The Wildcats (15-1), ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, have the kind of team that knows how to do everything well.
Three players — freshman guard Matthew King, senior guard Harold Woods and senior guard Julius Byrd — scored in double figures for the Wildcats on Friday. King had 16, and Woods and Byrd each had 11.
Hammond made 8 of 14 shots from 3-point range and forced Valparaiso (17-5) into 15 turnovers.
Darrell Reed, a 6-foot-7 senior center who finished with eight points, said the Wildcats take nothing for granted. Last week, they beat Chesterton at home, and they are 4-0 against Duneland Athletic Conference teams.
“When we do what we got to do, we feel like we can be really good,” Reed said.
The Wildcats started to break the game open at the end of the second quarter. They didn’t press in the first quarter but went to a full-court zone press in the second.
With about two minutes left in the second, Valparaiso decided to stay in its zone even though it was trailing 27-21.
Hammond played for the last shot. The Vikings, who were hanging back, stole the ball with about 15 seconds left. The Wildcats then blocked a 3-point attempt by Michael Flynn in the corner with about five seconds remaining.
The Wildcats got the ball to senior Reggie Abram, who raced past half-court and made a 25-footer at the buzzer, giving Hammond a nine-point lead. Abram, their starting point guard, left the game in the third quarter with an injury to his lower leg.
Hammond slowly pulled away in the third, pushing its lead to 17.
Valparaiso had one major issue. It was playing without starting point guard Breece Walls. The junior twisted his ankle in a game against East Chicago Central last week. He was on the sidelines in a walking boot.
Valparaiso coach Barak Coolman said he’s not sure whether Walls will be available Tuesday, when the Vikings will play Chesterton in the first round of the Class 4A Chesterton Sectional.
Coolman said his team didn’t recover from the sequence at the end of the first half.
“We were down six, and it looked like we had a shot,” Coolman said. “Then they counted (Abram’s) shot to make it a nine-point lead. It was just a combination of things. We had some outside factors, and we did not bring our best game.”
Reed, an Alabama State recruit, said he can’t wait for the sectional. Hammond will play either Griffith or Gavit on March 5.
The Wildcats won their third straight sectional title last year but didn’t get to play in the regional due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve been really excited for sectionals this year,” he said. “I really wanted to go to regionals last year.”