Hoepker’s 31 leads Cubs past Wildcats

MORAN — An early Marmaton Valley lead evaporated quickly as Tuesday’s game against Humboldt turned into the Rayce Hoepker show.
The Wildcats led the Cubs 6-5 midway through the first quarter after a pair of Justice Pugh free throws.
“I asked them to throw the first punch, and we came out and threw the first punch,” Marmaton Valley coach Jason Bauer said. “They started to believe in themselves, but then Rayce got hot and we didn’t have any confidence.”
Hoepker — who is averaging 27.8 points-per-game this season — scored the next eight points on a pair of threes and a fastbreak layup after Pugh’s free throws to lead Humboldt to a 24-8 lead at the end of the first quarter. Hoepker had 19 of those 24.
The Cubs won 59-23. Hoepker scored 31 points in only three quarters of action.
“The whole goal was to not let (Hoepker) touch the ball, and we did a very poor job of that,” Bauer said.
Humboldt coach David Taylor said Hoepker had a good first quarter in part because of several layups in transition.
“We have a saying, ‘he who runs gets to score,’ in terms of easy transition buckets,” Taylor said.
“It took us awhile to get going, but I thought we were really crisp with running our stuff,” Taylor said. “And Rayce shot the ball really well early, and that got us going.”
Taylor also said the team played better once it fought for rebounds. That Cubs rebounding frustrated Bauer.
“Boxing out, we’ve struggled at that all year,” Bauer said. “We give up too many second chance shots. We can’t afford to do that.”
Even after the scoreboard showed little hope, Bauer challenged his players to not quit.
“(I told them) don’t quit on me, because I’m not going to quit on you,” Bauer said. “We had a heart-to-heart after the game, and I know some of them quit on us, but we’re going to come together and pull together and be a family.”
“I told them that five to ten years down the road they’re going to wish that they would’ve played harder, gave more effort, actually cared about it because five to ten years down the road you can’t go back and do it,” Bauer said. “You only get one chance.”