CRESTON − After Hillsdale’s 67-64 road win against Norwayne on Friday evening, Hillsdale head coach Ben Ferguson said something about his sophomore point guard and son Lowen Ferguson, that most head coaches would most likely never admit about one of their players at any level of basketball.
“I’m going to tell you, I truly believe that Lowen knows more about basketball than most high school basketball coaches,” said Ferguson, with a straight face.
Even you coach?
“I can’t say that,” he said, with a laugh.
Please do elaborate.
“He watches more film than anybody on the team, including me. Nonstop. He’s the coach on the floor,” Ferguson said, breaking it down. “If you notice, he’s not looking at the bench to see what set to call. He runs the show and we allow him to do that. For years, he’s always had his biggest games in the biggest games. Tonight, he did.”
It was certainly true on Friday night, as Lowen was the best player on the floor throughout, notching a game-high 31 points while making 16-of-19 free throws and three 3-pointers. With the ball in his hands the majority of the time, Lowen’s knack for speeding the game up, slowing it down when needed, calling the set plays, handling Norwayne’s handsy defense and getting to the hoop persistently all played dividends in the Falcons win, where they held the lead most of the way.
“It was a great crowd. Great student section and all that. We had a seven-point lead at halftime. We knew they were going to go on a run. We had to keep our cool,” said Lowen.
Norwayne’s 1-2-2 full-court press sped Hillsdale up and forced some turnovers in the second half, that allowed the Bobcats to creep back into the game.
“I thought we were more aggressive going to the rim and attacked a little better,” said Norwayne head coach Brian West, of his team’s second half play. “It just came down to getting stops and we couldn’t get stops. We tried to make a run and we were trading buckets. They shot 36 free throws to our 16. That’s tough.”
“It was a tournament atmosphere. You go back-and-forth from a seven-point lead to three, back to six, then down to four. That’s basketball. It’s a game of runs,” said Coach Ferguson. “It was really important to keep composure while playing with the lead. To have that back-and-fourth with them will make us better of course.”
“We’ve handled a lot of pressure this year and that’s helped us,” Lowen said, regarding the 1-2-2 press Norwayne through at them. “Special shutout to Porter Boreman, my backcourt partner. He really handled it well as a freshman in that environment. Once we got past it, we got layups out of it.”
For both Hillsdale (8-3, 5-2) and Norwayne (7-6, 5-2) at this point in the season, they’ve each had to adjust to the new realities of just how different their teams are compared to last season.
For Norwayne, it’s the fact that they loss their top seven scorers from last year’s 23-3 team that won the Wayne County Athletic League title with an undefeated record, that included double-digit per game scorers in Tyson Hess (16.4), Braden West (15.9) and Parker Metsker (10.3).
West says his 2026 team is still searching for an identity 13 games in.
“Our style has changed. Losing Braylon Arnold. He was our only starter back from last year,” West said. “He would make a 1,000 percent difference. Not only did we lose seniors but we loss an underclassmen to a season-ending surgery. The teams we’ve built, the kids have such a target on their backs. It doesn’t matter who’s wearing the jersey. They see the name and they’re bringing their best effort every night. To this point, we’ve not been able to handle that very well.”
On Hillsdale’s side, it’s getting used to playing without last year’s Division VII District 4 Player of the Year in 6-foot-6 center Bradey Krichbaum (15.0 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 2.7 BPG), who the Falcons played through offensively quite a bit.
“If you look at our games at the start of the season compared to now, you’ll see that now we’re starting to find our footing on how to run our offense without him,” Lowen explained. “A lot of times last year, we just dumped it inside to him. Now, we’re looking to run more offensive sets. The rebounding part, Kael and Knox Lewis have done really well inside.”
To that, Hillsdale has played with a much smaller lineup, playing small-ball and aiming to out quick other teams.
“Yeah, we can go man-to-man defense and switch because we feel like we can keep up with any player on the court,” added Lowen. “We’ve been able to get out and run.”
“We changed the offense,” said Coach Ferguson. “We changed everything. We’re pressing more. We’re getting out running more. Overall as a team, we’re faster.”
Another thing Hillsdale is doing this season, is leaning more on Lowen on the offensive end and Friday’s 31-point display was a clear indicator of that, especially with starting shooting guard Troy Bennett currently out with an ankle injury.
“I knew coming into this season, we were losing 15 points a game. Then when Troy goes down, that’s 25 points that someone has to make up,” said Lowen. “So, I know I had to take on that task but my teammates have really helped me do that, as they have become offensive threats.”
With the win, Hillsdale snapped Norwayne’s 34-game home winning streak in WCAL play.
“We haven’t won here in 10 years,” Lowen expressed. “It’s really special to win here because of the environment. It was a fun game.”
jamessimpson@gannett.com
Twitter/X: @JamesSimpsonII
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Hillsdale basketball defeats Norwayne on the road in key WCAL game
