Hawks make most of extra time, defeat Oakdale in boys basketball

Jan. 9—URBANA — In a mad scramble at the end of regulation, Urbana boys basketball considered itself fortunate two Oakdale layup attempts rolled out.

The Bears got the better of the Hawks in a gritty fourth quarter, but those misses sent the contest to overtime and gave Urbana another shot.

And right from sophomore forward RJ Roche’s tip to senior forward Jude Huseby, which quickly turned into a layup, the Hawks found their stroke and made the most of their second chance.

Urbana put away Oakdale in the extra period for a critical 52-46 home win on a Monday when its shooting sagged below its typically torrential pace.

“Getting to overtime was big for us. Making that last stop there gave us more energy and a lot more emotion,” Hawks coach David Crawmer said. “And then we came out, making that first shot again gave us more energy, more emotion.”

It sparked a 10-1 run in the first two minutes of overtime, punctuated by another putback by Huseby and a corner 3-pointer from freshman forward Aaron Shoffner. That equaled Urbana’s most points in a quarter all night, and it put the contest away with another Shoffner bucket and a pair of Roche free throws.

That outburst came after both the Hawks and Bears registered just 38 points apiece in regulation, the contest awash in turnovers and bodies banging for rebounds. The grind-it-out style is familiar to Oakdale, which allows 45.9 points per game and entered Monday on a three-game winning streak.

But it’s new to Urbana, which averages 68.1 points per game. It didn’t matter.

“Our defense has been there every single game,” Huseby said. “It’s just our offense wasn’t there. When our offense isn’t there, our defense is always there. And in overtime, our offense came out and showed what it should be.”

Despite those struggles, the Hawks (8-2) led most of the night, though they rarely were ahead by more than two possessions. Roche had a game-high 21 points, including five 3-pointers, and eight rebounds. Shoffner finished with 14 points, while Huseby had 10.

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The Bears (5-5) rallied to take a four-point lead halfway through the fourth quarter, though that soon slipped away, and the contest settled into a stalemate. Jordan Chaney drove their offense with 20 points and five rebounds, though the team shot just 31.6 percent from the field.

“We can defend all we want, but we have to be able to score more points,” Oakdale coach Brandon Long said.

The majority of the game was played without a shot clock after an errant 3-point try by the Bears late in the first quarter knocked out one of the clocks above the basket. Both coaches and the referees agreed to the change after a nearly 10-minute delay to fix the clock proved fruitless.

That inherently lends itself to a slower contest, one marked by few points on the scoreboard.

“This is the first game we’ve been in like this all year,” Crawmer said. “No shot clock, we played to their pace almost the entire game, and we were still able to adapt and come out with…