It was Hemlock 53 and Ithaca 35 in district boys basketball title action on Friday. Hemlock had quarter leads of 25-7, 36-17 and 41-27 to improve its record to 12-7.
Hemlock was led by Jake Shelagowski with 22 points and 11 rebounds; Bryce Murphy with 11 points, three steals and three assists; Chad Brown with 11 points, seven rebounds and three steals and Max Dinninger with four points, six rebounds and three assists.
Bronson Bupp had 10 points and Brendan Wood had five points.
Hemlock coach Matt Bauer: “The kids were really hungry in this tournament. We found another gear and played inspired basketball. We loved playing the role of underdog in this tournament as the No. 2 seed. We may have lost seven regular season games, but six were by a combined total of 17 points. Once again tonight, we came out of the gates flying. I think we were up 14-0 before Ithaca got on the board with a driving lay-up.
“Our defense was strong and Jacob Shelagowski had another monster game with 22 points and 11 rebounds. He was also 8-of-9 from the free-throw line. His improvement this year has been fun to watch. Chad Brown might have played his best game in his young Huskie career. He had nine big points and a couple steals in the first quarter to really get us going. Ithaca plays really hard and they probably have the deepest team that we played. They kept making runs but we were able to hold them off and finish strong, something that we’ve really improved at.”
Hemlock will play Flint Beecher at Beecher High School on Monday.