Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

At halftime, the Eielson Ravens received a simple message — it’s all up to you.

Maintaining the perfect record in conference, the dominance over the Hutchison Hawks, the No. 2 ranking in the state — it’s all up to you.

The Ravens took that message and ran with it.

After a lackluster first half, the Eielson Ravens responded with a big third quarter to claim a 64-60 win over the Hawks and stayed undefeated against their Aurora Conference foe.

“First half, we just didn’t feel like we matched their energy,” Eielson coach Kelly Growden said. “They wanted us bad, we’ve never lost to Hutch and they’ve got a nice team this year. … It was big for us to be able to come here and get a win.

“It’s just kind of one of those things at halftime where we said, ‘Unless you match their intensity, there’s nothing we can do to turn this around. That’s on you.’”

Unable to get anything going on offense, the Ravens found themselves trailing 25-19 at the break. But thanks to an improved press and the efforts of Kyle McConnell, the Ravens scored 32 points in the third quarter to take control of the game.

“They were wanting it more at halftime and we weren’t playing up to our potential,” said McConnell, who scored 12 of his 14 points in the third quarter. “We responded. We did what we had to do.”

With shots not falling from the outside, what the Ravens had to do was find a way to get to the basket. That way turned out to be their full-court press.

With the lanky McConnell (five steals) and backup guard Devante Sparrow (four steals) leading the way, the Ravens turned steals into easy layins as they used a 14-2 run early in the third quarter to take the lead, 33-32.

“That’s our game. The press is what we do,” McConnell said. “When we’ve got our press going, we’re pretty hard to stop.”

The Hawks retook the lead on back-to-back buckets from center Reuben Pike, and free throws from Ben Snow helped Hutchison open up a 38-35 advantage.

But Eielson kept pressing and closed the third with a 17-4 run to take a 52-42 lead.

“We realized we needed to come back and pick it up,” said Eielson guard Colten Growden, who had a game-high 20 points.

Foul trouble forced the Hawks to play most of the third quarter without their captains, Cole Daniel and Matt Atkins, two of their best players at breaking the press.

“The third quarter, when those guys went out of the game with the fouls, I didn’t feel like we really handled it well,” Hutchison coach Dave Thompson said. “But (Eielson) had more intensity, too. You’ve got to hand it to them.”

With Atkins and Daniel back in the game, and the Ravens running out of energy, Hutchison made a late push, trimming a 14-point deficit down to three. But with under 20 seconds left the Hawks were forced to foul, and Growden, who missed on his previous 1-and-1, connected on the front end this time to seal the win.

“(I was) just hoping I could get it done. We shoot a lot of free throws in practice, I was just going back to one of those times in practice where I made it,” Growden said. “I thought about making it, the correct form and everything.”

Doing most of his work off cuts, Atkins led the Hawks with 12 points while Bryant Palm and Ben Snow had 11 apiece.

But it wasn’t enough to knock the Ravens from their perch.

“We’ve got a tough conference and they’re a tough team,” Thompson said. “There’s a reason we haven’t beaten them.”

Eielson girls win

The Eielson girls used strong defense in the second half to put away the Hutchison Hawks 63-28, completing the Ravens sweep.

After 3-pointers by Jessica Hildebrand and Kim Wilson tied the game 8-8, the Ravens finished the first quarter on a 10-0 run and built up a 34-22 lead at halftime.

But the second half is when they played their best.

Eielson limited the Hawks to just two points in the third quarter and four in the fourth as they cruised to the win.

Sharee Miller scored 17 of her 19 points in the first half to lead the Ravens and Alex Wood chipped in 14 points.

Kim Wilson led Hutchison with nine points, all coming on first-half 3-pointers.

Contact staff writer Adam Raeder at 459-7583.