HILLSBORO • After getting pounded by 30-plus points in its last two games, the Festus boys basketball team were looking for a big bounce-back, and that's exactly what the Tigers got.
A big second quarter allowed Festus to open a big halftime lead and the Tigers cruised from there to a 72-48 victory in a Jefferson County Conference game Thursday at Hillsboro.
"We had been struggling there for a few games, but we had a really good one-hour practice where we told them what to execute," Festus coach Anthony Kinder said. "They came out and listened, and the result we got tonight was a victory."
The win locked up the JCC large-school division title for the Tigers, who are 15-7 overall and 4-0 in league play.
Playing on a night when most area teams were off, Festus clinched the division title in front of an interesting crowd.
"It was perfect," Festus leading scorer Austin Schwent said of the win. "De Soto was here. Crystal was here. It felt really good to get it front of everybody."
Schwent paced a balanced Festus attack with 18 points. He was one of four Tigers to score in double figures.
Hillsboro (15-8, 1-2), which beat Festus by a point in last year's district championship, lost for just the third time in 12 games.
"If my stats are right, we were two for 22 from the 3-point line, which is uncharacteristic of us," Hillsboro coach Dan Johnson said. "But a lot of that you can probably attribute to their defense."
The Hawks came out cold from the field, as they hit just four of their first 14 shots, but still managed to hold a 9-6 lead with 2:52 to go in the first quarter.
"We didn't have great shot selection, and that led to some easy baskets for them," Johnson said.
But the Tigers scored seven of the final nine points in the quarter to take a lead they would never relinquish.
Festus distanced itself from Hillsboro with a huge second quarter in which it enjoyed a 27-13 advantage. That eight-minute offensive output was almost as much as the Tigers mustered for the entire game in the previous two outings against Cape Girardeau Central (30) and Fort Zumwalt North (32).
"We have games where we can do that, and then we have games where we can't," Kinder said. "When we're making our shots, everything is working for us, and tonight we had it all."
Schwent and Blaine Eggemeyer (14 points) were able to score almost at will in the paint against the Hawks defense.
"I think that was just a sheer backside help issue, but I'll have to watch the tape and figure it out," Johnson said. "They had way too many points in the paint, especially in the second quarter, and that was the difference."
With a 40-23 lead at halftime, Schwent (11.7 points per game) and Eggemeyer (7.5 ppg) had already exceeded their season averages with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
"They gave the ball to us early and it was working, so we kept going to it," Schwent said. "We just tried to finish everything we could."
Taylor Hassell's runner at the third-quarter buzzer and jumper to open the fourth got Hillsboro to within 52-39, but that was as close as the Hawks could get in the second half.
The Tigers' Ali Abbas scored 17 points in relief of point guard Collin Beffa, who has been out for 10 days with an ankle sprain that likely will sideline him until the start of district play. Jeremy Moss was the fourth Tiger in double figures with 14.
Erik Maynard paced Hillsboro with 14 points, while Jake Thebeau scored 12 and Hassell 11.
