Lakota West, in OT, spoils Hamilton’s return to the court
Just when the Hamilton High School boys basketball team seemed to be getting its season on track, pandemic protocols prompted the school on Jan. 14 to shut down all extracurricular activities.
After losing its first five games, the Big Blue had won two straight and four of its last five before being derailed. Hamilton hadn’t played since Jan. 7, and it certainly wasn’t going to let Friday’s unanticipated snowfall get in the way of returning to the court.
Hamilton got back to action on Friday with a Greater Miami Conference home game against a Lakota West team missing GMC leading scorer Nathan Dudukovich and pushed the Firebirds to overtime before losing, 56-54.
“That’s irrelevant,” Hamilton coach Kevin Higgins said about any impact the layoff had on his team. “It doesn’t matter. We played a game, and we lost.”
Hamilton senior Sage Tolentino scored the first six points of overtime to give Hamilton a 56-50 lead, but Lakota West senior William Layfield responded by scoring the Firebirds’ last six points, including a driving layup with two seconds left to lift Lakota West to the win.
“We never thought we were out of it,” said Layfield, who finished with four 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 23 points. “We knew we wanted to win. That’s what we did.”
Tolentino, a University of Cincinnati commit, led Hamilton (4-7, 3-4 GMC) with 16 points. The Big Blue made just three 3-pointers, while the Firebirds connected on nine while playing a more deliberate offense with Dudukovich sidelined, wearing a gray walking boot on his right foot.
“We knew Nate was not going to play,” Layfield said. “We knew we had to step up. We knew we had to play hard. We knew we had to play ball.”
“They play hard,” Lakota West (9-8, 5-7) coach Jim Leon