Edwardsburg falls to Hamilton

Published 9:35 am Thursday, March 14, 2019

COLOMA — The record-setting season of the Edwardsburg girls basketball team came to an end at the hands of Hamilton at Coloma High School Monday night.

The Hawkeyes (23-0) won the battle of undefeated teams 60-39 to advance to tonight’s Division 3 regional championship game against Plainwell, which defeated Benton Harbor in the other semifinal Monday night.

Hamilton was able to use its height and reach advantage to pressure the Eddies (23-1) into numerous turnovers, especially in the opening half. The Eddies finished the game with 29 turnovers to the Hawkeyes’ 12.

“Their length really got to us,” said Edwardsburg coach Jon Pobuda. “They did to us what we’re used to doing to other teams. They got after us, forced us to speed up and turn the ball over. They did that to us early, and we never recovered from it. We struggled offensively. We didn’t get our spacing and didn’t attack them very well. They were all over the place. They kept us outside and eliminated us getting to the
basket.”

Hamilton led 14-6 after one quarter and was never seriously challenged by Edwardsburg.

The lead bloomed to 32-16 by halftime.

Edwardsburg was unable to make a run at the Hawkeyes in the second half and trailed 45-24 heading into the final eight minutes of its season.

Eddies’ senior Kaitlyn Zarycki, who became the school’s all-time leading scorer in the previous game, was held to just 14 points and was clearly frustrated by the Hamilton defense.

Zarycki finishes her career with 1,609 points.

“It is a great senior class, and it was a great season,” Pobuda said. “Between Zarycki getting the school record for both boys and girls and setting the school record for wins and going undefeated for the regular season, they accomplished a lot. We just ran into a very good Hamilton that has a lot of length and talent.”

Hamilton was led by Bria Schrotenboer’s game-high 22 points. A.J. Ediger added 16 points.