CASHTON— The Hillsboro Tigers closed out a perfect 14–0 conference season with wins over Scenic Bluffs foes Necedah and New Lisbon last week and have jumped to number one in the latest Division 5 coaches’ poll, according to wissports.net.
The Tigers (21–1) held off a late Necedah run to score a 61–49 victory over the visiting Cardinals last Monday night.
Senior Hunter Stanek made all 10 shots he attempted, eight from the field and two from the free throw line, finishing with a team-high 18 points and 12 rebounds to power the Tigers to the 12-point win. It was his fourth double–double of the season for the Hillsboro big man.
Fellow senior Joe Helgerson added 15 points and four assists, while Max Stockwell added 13 points and six boards.
Ethan Thorson made three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points for Hillsboro.
Sophomore Miles Saylor scored a game-high 22 points to keep Necedah (12–10, 9–5 SBC) in the game.
Hillsboro 53, New Lisbon 26
Last Thursday, Hillsboro closed out the regular season with a dominating 53–26 victory over struggling New Lisbon (4–17, 2–12).
Helgerson scored a game-high 14 points to lead a balanced attack on Senior Night.
Fellow senior Tyler Crandall scored nine. Stockwell added seven.
All 14 Tigers played extended minutes in the blowout, with nine scoring at least two points.
Helgerson, Stockwell, Stanek, Crandall, Thorson and fellow Hillsboro seniors Tommy Crandall, Ben Mayberry, Adrian Marquez, Skyler Fisher and Sawyer Hynek were honored prior to Friday’s regular season finale.
“Winning conference outright was one of our goals that we set at the beginning of the season,” said Hillsboro head coach Curt Hildreth. “This is the first conference title for this group of seniors. It is a pretty sweet thing for them, but as we talked about after the Bangor game there are other goals out here that we want to achieve.”
Among those are a regional title, and hopefully a return trip to the Kohl Center and the WIAA state tournament. A year ago, the Tigers went 23–6 and reached the D5 championship game.
Hillsboro finished this year’s regular season 21–1 overall and entered Tuesday’s night’s WIAA Division 5 regional quarterfinal against 16th-seeded Granton (3–19) on a nine-game winning streak.
With a win over the Giants, coach Curt Hildreth’s top-seeded Tigers will host either ninth-seeded Weston (9–12) or eighth-seeded Augusta (8–14) in a D5 regional semifinal at Hillsboro High School at 7 p.m.
The regional final will be held Saturday night at 7 p.m., which the Tigers would host with a regional semifinal win on Friday night.
Fourth-seeded Alma/Pepin (15–5) and fifth-seeded Royall (13–8) are the highest-seeded teams on the other half of Hillsboro’s eight-team regional bracket.
Hillsboro ranked No. 1 again in Division 5
The Tigers moved into the top spot in the Division 5 coaches’ poll after Chippewa Falls McDonell Central’s 88–83 loss at Marathon on Feb. 22.
Hillsboro was ranked number one earlier in the season before a 69–67 loss to Westby on Feb. 1.
