‘Never give up, never surrender’ attitude sends Hiland to state
Alex Miller continues to come up with big play after big play for the Hawks in their tournament run. He did so again versus South Webster, and the Hawks celebrated another comeback victory.
The Hiland Hawks pulled a bit of playbook from the esteemed Commander Peter Quincy Taggart in their Division IV confrontation with South Webster at the Convocation Center on Friday, March 15.
Trailing by big numbers throughout the first half and much of the third period on a night when Hiland’s shooting was ice cold, Hiland leaned hard into Taggart’s motto, “Never give up, never surrender.”
As the leader of a ragtag group of actors piloting the spacecraft in a make-believe fantasy television show in the sci-fi movie “Galaxy Quest,” fanboys shouted the go-to line at him constantly.
That might as well have been what the Hawks found at the heart of the improbable 48-45 overtime victory that saw them overcome a huge deficit in the second half.
“It’s a testament to these kids and the work they’ve put in,” Hiland head coach Mark Schlabach said. “You hope the things we talk about sink in, and we talk a lot about reaching our potential. We kept grinding. We’ve been there before, and that helps. It was incredible to see them never stop clawing and working hard. They never felt it was over.”
Hiland trailed 6-0 from the onset and 12-6 through one quarter. Things only got worse as Hiland fell further behind at 16-6 and 23-7, until Nick Wigton hit a 3-pointer at the half to trim the deficit to 23-12.
Things remained bleak at the 3:30 mark in the third period, with the Hawks trailing 29-14. Then star senior Sammy Detweiler decided enough was enough.
The sharpshooter drew a bead on a trey, then hit two jumpers to get the Hawks to within shouting distance at 31-21.
Wigton delivered another big shot, this time a triple to begin the third period, and Hiland’s defense was digging deep. Detweiler found Sam Wengerd for a score and hit two more jumpers. When Wigton tickled the twin again with 1:58 left to play, Hiland trailed just 41-38.
Moments later Logan Hershberger made a steal and found Alex Miller, who completed an improbable and-one as he was hammered to the floor.
With 1:36 left, the two teams were on equal footing.
Miller scored off the drive to give the Hawks their first lead of the game with 3:32 to play in overtime. With the score again knotted at 43, Hiland got the play of the game, a “blink and you might miss it” play that went from Hershberger to Miller to Wengerd, and Hiland again led 45-43 with 34 seconds to play.
After a Jeeps miss, Miller split two free throws, and Hiland had to survive not one but two Jeeps 3-point attempts in the closing seconds to claim victory.
For the Hawks gracing the floor over the final intense moments of the fourth period and overtime, “Never give up, never surrender” was exactly what it took for the Hawks to come storming back. Considering Hiland never held the lead until there was just 3:32 left in overtime, it took a great deal of determination and faith in one another to claw back into the game.
From there on it was pure guts and effort that pushed them all the way to another state berth.
How the team found the fortitude to overcome the odds begins in the home locker room, where the sign stating “tough players win” hangs above the door and defines what inspired this team to come storming back.
The players never lost faith in one another and shared their thoughts on what transpired on this magical night.
“We were struggling, and at half-time we went into the locker room and nobody had their head down,” junior Nick Wigton said. “We knew from the year before we’d been in the same situation, and we knew what we had to do. We realized it wasn’t going to be immediate, but we believed with one step at a time we would get it done.”
Sam Wengerd agreed.
“It was the toughness that coaches preach every single day in practice,” Wengerd said. “Our coaches never gave up on us, and their being calm in the locker room helped us to not panic.”
The players recognize a return to state hinged on two things: taking better shots and buckling down defensively.
The former came courtesy of Sammy Detweiler, who caught fire in the latter half of the third quarter to draw the Hawks close.
“Sammy is so unselfish, and at times we need him to be selfish,” Schlabach said of his All-Ohioan. “He’s so good at making the right decisions, and it came time for him to take over the game and he did.”
Detweiler wouldn’t take credit, noting this was a true team effort coming from a group of guys who simply willed their way back into the game.
“I think a lot of people gave up on us,” Detweiler said. “But there wasn’t one guy who didn’t believe we weren’t going to come back and win that game, and our coaches felt the same way. We just had to go out and do the things we know we can do, and we did it.”
Defensively, nobody dug deeper than stalwart defender junior Logan Hershberger. He said watching each other give everything they had inspired everyone to play even harder.
“We weren’t going to let this season end there, not that way,” Hershberger said. “We have worked so hard, and that work paid off when we needed it most, and we did it together. We knew defense was going to be key, and those stops on defense turned into some good offensive opportunities in transition.”
Senior Conner Beachy wasn’t on the floor to help inspire his teammates. The heartbeat of this team was relegated to the bench with a broken ankle. Yet he and fellow injured teammates Alex Yoder and Ashton Schrock continue to be an integral part of the team’s success.
He said the comeback is a testament to the team’s schedule and the guys being loyal to one another and to their coaching staff.
“That’s an all-time game, an all-time comeback,” Beachy said. “The past two years our regional championship games haven’t gone very well, but our tenacity and drive to succeed has come through and helped us win in the end. We did it one bucket at a time. There was no quit in this team. We practice hard, we play hard, and every day it’s just about work ethic and we never give up.”
All of that belief, the fight to never give up and never surrender, led the Hawks back to Dayton for a third straight state appearance. This marks Hiland’s 14th state tournament appearance. The only schools with more state appearances include Canton McKinley (28; 13 since 1958 when Hiland consolidated), St. Vincent-St. Mary (18), Cleveland Villa-Angela St. Joseph (15) and Portsmouth (15; 7 since 1958).