MEN’S BASKETBALL

The HU men’s basketball team (17-8, 6-7) wrapped up the regular season series sweep over Spring Arbor (6-19, 0-13) Tuesday night in Platt Arena by handing the Cougars an 85-56 loss. The lopsided affair had a much different feel than the first matchup that took an extra period for the Foresters to steal an 80-75 win on the road back in November.

Most obvious to Alford and crew’s success was their accuracy from deep. HU dropped in 15 long balls, outscoring SAU 45-15 from long range, at a clip of 40.5 percent. They did nearly half their damage in the opening ten minutes as seven of their first nine field goals were from deep.

After over five minutes of fighting for any sort of advantage, the Foresters took a permanent lead of 11-9 at the 14:17 mark. It took another five minutes for the hosts to claim a permanent double-digit lead of 26-16. It was smooth sailing after that as Huntington finished the half up 45-31 and then padded their lead by 15 more in the final 20 minutes to notch their fifth 25+ point win of the season.

Lane Sparks and Hank Pulver led the barrage of threes by draining four apiece while five other Foresters hit at least one. Sparks missed just two shots all night by going 7-for-9 to post 19 points in addition to collecting seven rebounds, three steals and three assists.

Zach Goodline also tossed in 19 points to enjoy game-high scoring honors with Sparks. Pulver finished a perfect 4-for-4 from beyond the arc to tally 12 points. Caleb Middlesworth added ten points while Spencer Ballinger was the game’s top rebounder with eight boards.

While it was a quiet scoring night for Ben Humrichous, the 6-8 sophomore found other ways to contribute by way of racking up seven rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals.

Spring Arbor was led by Kevyn Robertson’s ten points. Four other Cougars finished with at least eight points.

As a team, Huntington forced 16 TOs of which 12 were steals. Also notable about the Foresters’ play was how well they shared the ball as 20 of their 31 field goals were assigned an assist.

HU is at home again on Saturday to host #16 Saint Francis at 3:00 p.m.