Hogan’s sharp shooting leads Catholic past Wayland.

Coming off of a surprising loss to Jenison here at WMA we still had Wayland Union as one of our top teams in the area. Tonight however they rolled into Catholic Central against a very hungry Cougar team. We had Wayland in the number 3 spot of our weekly rankings on Monday with Catholic in the 6^th position; it looks like we had it backwards. Conor Hogan owned the night leading the Cougar shooting attack with 6 of his squads 9 triples.

Hogan started early with four 3’s in the first quarter alone but it wasn’t enough to stop Wayland’s early onslaught of the paint. Wildcat forward Tyler Flier had 10 points in the first half while center Justin Pepper chipped in 8 and both owned the boards. Wayland controlled early winning the first two quarters by a point each and held a 29-27 halftime lead. All Catholic could do was try to hang on until they figured out the Wildcat offensive attack.

Catholic Central made the necessary adjustments at halftime and was able to limit the post passes along with rebounding better on the defensive end; Hogan was ready to make his mark on the game. With 2:46 left in the third quarter and the game locked up at 36 Hogan received a pass on the left wing and launched a three attempt, he was fouled and the shot was true. After a converted free-throw the Cougars led by 4 and never looked back. Brendan Penny was on the right sideline three times to bang in triples for Catholic every time Wayland got close, giving him all nine of his points in the second half.

Wayland was unable to get the ball inside with any consistency and Catholic only allowed one shot per possession as they extended their lead. In the final stanza Hogan and fellow guard Zeke Mojica-Skinner were able to kill clock and find forward John Haley for two huge baskets late to fend off the Wildcats for a big 66-55 OK Gold victory. Catholic Central stayed right with their scoring average on Offense and Defense but was able to knock in five more threes than normal.

Hogan finished with 28 points (18 off of the 3 point shot). Haley had 9 while Skinner chipped in with 8. For Wayland it was point guard Zach Kasper in the second half who was able to get anything going, he finished with 14. Pepper led the way with 16 and Flier had 12 only two in the second half. Catholic gains a big early season win in league and now sits at 7-0 on the season while Wayland has lost 2 of 3 after going unbeaten last year.