Bartlett refused to panic Wednesday when taller, more experienced West Aurora completely shut down leading scorer Ben Tompson. Losing composure is just not the Hawks’ style.
Instead, sophomore guard Austin Gates scored 22 points and host Bartlett’s switching defenses silenced West Aurora down the stretch for a 60-53 victory in a battle for first place in the Upstate Eight Valley.
“Austin did a great job all the way around,” Bartlett coach Jim Wolfsmith said. “He found his outside shot. They were giving it to him and he took it with authority early.
“And he was physical around the basket.”
Bartlett (11-7, 5-0) held West Aurora (13-6, 4-1) to two points in the final three minutes and finished 21-for-24 at the free throw line. It let the young Hawks, who start only one senior, win their fifth straight and eighth in nine games.
“I think the learning curve for these kids has been a lot faster than I thought it would be,” Wolfsmith said.
The 6-foot-2 Gates called it no surprise when West Aurora made it a priority to blanket Tompson.
“He’s got the bull’s-eye on his back,” Gates said. “They locked him down. They face-guarded him. So some of the rest of us had to step up. I just saw the basket, and it just looked big.”
Every Hawk stepped up defensively, but Gates had the key points.
He hit two 3-pointers in a second-quarter rally. With 1:19 left in the game, he beat West Aurora back down the floor for a fast-break layup. Gates drew the foul and made the free throw to give Bartlett the lead for good at 53-51.
West Aurora received a technical foul for complaining about a traveling call coming out of a timeout. Gates went to the line and hit both free throws for a 55-51 lead with 49.1 seconds remaining.
Bartlett’s Ben Fisher then drove for a layup after the technical. He drew the foul and completed a three-point play to clinch the win. Fisher finished with nine points and nine rebounds.
The Hawks closed the game with a 10-2 stretch and their defense held West Aurora scoring threat Camron Donatlan to a team-high 13 points.
“Defensively, I think when we changed our defense, it confused them,” Gates said. “They can’t just run then. We played zone, we pressed, man … we do everything.”
West Aurora charged out to a 14-5 lead and blocked two shots in the first two minutes of the first quarter. Bartlett shrugged that off and went to work.
“We knew they were going to block our shots and they did, but the key part was hitting our free throws when we did get the foul,” Fisher said.
The Hawks worked inside for layups or drew fouls and made free throws. They converted all 13 free-throw attempts through three quarters to lead 44-42.
“We did a drill a week ago where we had to make some insane amount of free throws and we had to run every time we didn’t get it,” Fisher said. “It helped.
“We weren’t a good free-throw shooting team at the beginning of the year, so it was big hurdle.”
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