Hawks survive late Heights charge

Prologue
Once again Cooper has Wednesday night all to themselves.  They host Columbia Heights in a North Suburban showdown.  Interesting guy filming with an iPad but he was holding it to his forehead so he could watch underneath.  Needless to say he got some great shots of the crowd on the far side.  I skipped concessions because I got too busy yapping.  So that leads to this for today's tune.

Song of the Day
Stevie Nicks - Talk to Me

Total Beverage Consumption Counter: 400 ounces  (38 games, 28 days)

• 36 oz Dr Pepper
• 24 oz Sprite
• 80 oz Red Powerade
• 40 oz Red Gatorade
• 140 oz Pepsi
• 60 oz Coke
• 20 oz Barq's Root Beer

Game Time
Heights opens up on a 7-1 run thanks to 5 points from Montroy Scott.  But the Hylanders would only get 1 field goal over a 9 minute stretch.  That allows Cooper to go on a 28-7 spurt.  It ends with an 18-2 run over 7 minutes.  6'7" F Jacob Lindgren with a pair of 3s in that run.  Brandon Robinson productive in the paint.  Marques Gray with another nice performance off the bench as he scores 7 in a row during the run and 9 of the 18 overall.  29-14 Cooper at 6:22.  Soph Jerrett Baptiste with a pair of putbacks to break the run.  Tak Anwey giving Heights their own bench spark.  He scores 9 in the half.  Heights claws back to within 35-28 at the half.

Baptiste back to back layups to tighten the game up.  Anwey with a pair of free throws with 12:01 left and Heights cuts the lead to 4, 46-42.  Brandon Baker with 6 straight Cooper points late.  That expands the lead to 61-54 with 3:39 left.  Zakaria Ali with a triple and Baptiste inside to cut the lead to 2 with 2:13 left.  Hawks turn it over but Heights gets nothing.

Soph Taron Pickford makes 3 of 4 free throws and Darrious Denson goes for a 3 point play to push the lead to 9 and this one should be over.  But not so fast.  Scott with a quick 3 with 36.7 left.  Pickford 2 more freebies and Anwey buries a 3.  Heights doesn't foul and gets a steal.  Baptiste fouled on a putback and makes 2 freebies with 10.9 left to cut the Cooper lead to 70-67.  Denson makes 1 of 2 with 10.4 left to seal it.  Cooper hangs on 71-67,

Post Game
For Columbia Heights, soph Jerrett Baptiste leads the Hylanders with 17 points.  Junior Montroy Scott chips in with 13.  Lots of zone defense from Heights.  The Hylanders fall to 4-3 overall and 1-1 in the North Suburban.  They are done until playing Centennial in the opening round of the Tartan holiday tournament.

For Cooper, Darrious Denson with 18 points to lead the Hawks.  Soph PG Taron Pickford clutch with 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch.  He also knocked down a pair of 3s on his way to 16 points.  He also did a quality job finding the bigs for layups on drives that sliced up the zones.  Like last week against Roosevelt, Cooper didn't slam the door after having a double digit lead early.  Marques Gray another solid performance off the bench.   They remain home for the holidays by hosting Park Center, Washburn and Kennedy in their own holiday tournament.  The Hawks are also 4-3, 1-1 but they've now won 4 out of 5.