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  • Belle Plaine’s Conner Racek puts up a shot against Jordon’s Luke Simonson during Monday’s Section 2AA semifinal game at Bresnan Arena. John Cross

    Belle Plaine hoops 3/16

March 16, 2010

Hynes, Jordan roll past Belle Plaine 81-57

Forward pops in 36 points for Hubmen

Denny Weller Special to The Free Press

MANKATO — With the Belle Plaine focusing on shutting down Jordan’s 6-foot-6 forward Yuriy Malashenko in Monday’s Section 2AA semifinal at Bresnan Arena, it created a opportunity Kurt Hynes will never forget.

Hynes, a versatile 6-3 forward, fired in a career-high 36 points — including nailing 5 of 7 from 3-point range — as the Hubmen overwhelmed Belle Plaine for the third time this season 81-57. Malashenko, who will play at Augustana next season, tallied 15 points and pulled down 14 rebounds.

“They’re tough for us to defend because they have so much size compared to us,” Tigers’ coach Randy Carlson said. “We had to expend so much energy on the inside by doubling and rotating our defense that they found openings on the perimeter.

“When you play a team like that you have to pick your poison and if you try to stop Malashenko then someone else steps up and scores. I was proud of the way our guys played hard right until the end. If they shoot like they did tonight, there’s not many teams in the state that could beat them.”

Jordan (22-5) opened up an early 9-3 advantage behind Hynes’ transition banker and left-side 3-pointer. After Matt Kahle’s three-point play made it 9-6, Luke Simonson’s two foul shots sparked a 9-0 run that produced an 18-6 lead on Kevin Way’s top-of-the-key 3-pointer.

Belle Plaine, which upset previously unbeaten Waterville-Elysian-Morristown in the quarterfinals, managed to stay within 25-18 behind two driving baskets from 5-foot-11, senior Connor Racek and 3-pointers from Miah Fogarty and Justin Potthast. Fogarty finished with 10 points and Potthast scored nine, all coming from beyond the arc.

Jordan then gained control on three straight 3-pointers — Hynes, Tanner Oakes and Chris Pauly — and Malashenko’s inside basket. After the Tigers cut the gap to 42-31 on Charlie Kern’s five-point flurry, Chris Hanek’s putback and Hynes’ 3-pointer made it 47-31 at the break.

“You can never take an opponent lightly, you have to come ready to play,” said Hynes, who was 12 of 20 from the field. “I knew I had three or four inches on my guy so I wanted to be aggressive right away. We got the ball to guys in the right position and we were aggressive looking for shots. ... It seemed like all our shots were falling.”

Hynes drove to the cup for three baskets in the early stages of the second half as the Hubmen quickly extended their margin to 63-38 on Pauly’s free-throw line jumper with 10:45 to go. Pauly and Oakes scored  seven points each for the winners, who connected on 29 of 48 shots for 60 percent.

“I thought we did a good job of getting to the rim,” Jordan coach Matt Urbane said. “Belle Plaine is a better team than their record indicates and we knew they were capable of putting together a good performance tonight. Their well disciplined and well coached so it was important to get off to a good start.”

Racek led the Tigers with 19 points while Ken and Fogarty put through 11 and 10 points, respectively.

“After beating Waterville we were just hoping for anything,” Racek said. “We thought we could pull it off but it didn’t work out too well. We tried not to help on their non-shooters and that really hurt us. ... They just overpowered us.”

Jordan faces Blue Earth Area in the 2AA title game at 8 p.m. Friday at Bresnan Arena.

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