Freshman Jacob Ervin’s consistency in earning the boards throughout the entirety of the game against Cedar Springs was what allowed the Rangers some chances to score. Regardless of Jacob’s numerous rebounds, FHC lost to Cedar Springs on Tuesday night with a final score of 51-36.

“It [the rebounding] helped us [the team] to get more points up on the board and more motivation to get back in the game,” said Jacob, who helped the Rangers to keep the score gap at 11 points to end of the first quarter 16-5 with Cedar ahead.

The game went downhill as soon as Cedar Springs won the jump ball and starting scoring points. As soon as the timer ran down in the first quarter, FHC made their game plan to get the ball to the post more and that is exactly what they did.

“In the second quarter, they [the team] were actually throwing the ball to the post and that’s where we were actually hurting them [Cedar Springs],” said head coach James Telman.

The Rangers went into the locker room at the half and left the score at 22-16 with the Red Hawks in the lead. FHC then hustled out of the locker room and immediately went to work; they took more open shots than they had in games prior. Unfortunately, the shots didn’t fall, and the Rangers couldn’t come back from the halftime deficit. One of the problems was turning the ball over.

“I think turnovers just killed us,” said sophomore team captain Tommy Spaletto. “[We’ve] just got to put all of the little things together and we’ll be fine in the long run.”

Throughout the duration of the game, the Rangers attempted three different types of defense: 1-3-1 zone, 2-3 zone, and man-to-man. None of their defenses worked as Cedar kept on scoring.

“We went 1-3-1, then to 2-3, to man-to-man. It was a mix of all of them [defenses],” Tommy said.

The Rangers did, however, move the ball around much more tonight; they got the ball through all of the double-teaming that Cedar Springs threw against FHC. With a combination of bounce passes and throwing in some over-the-head passes, the Rangers were able to find some openings and drive a few times to the basket. But, Telman feels like passing and shooting aren’t the only issues.

“Honestly I thought there weren’t enough players giving the effort that others were giving,” said Telman. “I thought there were spurts where everyone was playing as hard as they could, however, I think we really started to play a little too late in the game.”

On Thursday, FHC will take on Lowell at home. In order to prepare for this game, Telman thinks it is essential that the team works out the little kinks that they have in their gameplay.

“I hope that in tomorrow’s practice we [the team] can figure some things out, have better effort, play harder, and hopefully work out any kinks that we had today,” Telman said.