The Hillcrest Academy boys and girls basketball teams are back home Friday when they welcome the Wapello Indians and Arrows to Dwight Gingerich Court at Hillcrest Union. The Raven girls are in search of their first win of the season, coming into play with an 0-3 mark after losses to Tri-County, Winfield-Mt. Union and Mediapolis on the young season. Tuesday they fell to MEPO 71-14. Wapello comes into the night with a 1-2 record after opening the season with losses to Louisa-Muscatine and Wilton, the Arrows rebounded Tuesday to beat Columbus 49-23 at home behind 15 points from Serah Shafer, 14 from Tatum Wolford and 10 from Lindsy Massner. On the season, Wapello is scoring 38 per game while giving up 42. They shoot 38% from the floor, 27% from downtown and 41% at the free throw line. The Arrows average 22 rebounds, 10 assists, 15 steals and 21 turnovers per night. This week, Hillcrest head coach Mitchell Drey talked about what he likes about his team’s play from the first three games and what to expect from Wapello. “From the first day of practice until now it’s been night and day. I told the girls the other day that if we played against ourselves now from day one of practice, we would handle ourselves by 20 or 30 points. We have stepped up in almost every area of the court. Everyday the players are sponges. They soak up what we are doing and we move on. Wapello is a good, talented team coming in, but I think we match up nicely with them. We need to work on doing the little things well. Making the good pass, having the hands up. There were times in the first three games where we did those things but we need to string it together for multiple possessions.
The Arrows have won the last 10 meetings between the two schools.
The Hillcrest boys started the season Tuesday, falling to Mediapolis on the road 50-35. Grant Bender scored 11 for the Ravens, Luke Schrock had six rebounds two assists and two steals, Jace Rempel had three assists and a pair of steals. Hillcrest shot 28% from the floor in the loss, and were outrebounded by three. Wapello is 1-1 on the year after a 66-51 loss to Wilton and a 58-20 win over Columbus Tuesday. This week, Raven head coach Dwight Gingerich talked about what he saw from his team Tuesday against MEPO and the game plan for Wapello. “We just have a ways to go in a lot of different areas and the MEPO game highlighted that. They aren’t things that we hadn’t noticed, but just little things to work on. It’s going to take some time for us to get where we want to be. We feel like with Mediapolis we were close, right there with them, and the score may not be as indicative of that. I don’t feel like we got enough touches inside so we have been working on ways to get more post presence. and not have to rely as much on perimeter shooting. Wapello brings back the conference player of the year last year in Griffin. He’s a good player, athletic, makes good decisions and makes everyone around him better. They are also a tough matchup because they have size.”
Hillcrest has won 18 of the last 24 in the series against the Indians, but the teams have split the last 10. You can hear all of the action live tonight between the Ravens and the Indians and Arrows on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 5:30, tip of the girls game at six with the boys to follow.