Hrynyk's 31 lead Bartlett by E. Aurora

Bartlett Hawks boys basketball coach Jim Wolfsmith knew there would be "mountains to climb" with finals next week, as well as facing East Aurora and the Hawks' big man, Kamil Janton, out due to a double technical the night before against Larkin.

But the mountain seemed much larger as the Hawks (12-5, 4-1) had to overcome a 17-point deficit in the third quarter to pull out a 67-64 win in Upstate Eight Conference play on the road against the East Aurora Tomcats.

"We talked about mountains to climb before the game, down our big man," Wolfsmith said. "The kids played great defense down the stretch and hit their free-throws."

Entering the fourth quarter down 52-39, the Hawks went 17-for-18 at the line while tying the game for the first time after leading scorer Cory Hrynyk (31 points) hit a layup and completed the 3-point play from the line with 1:45 left to play.

"The free throws in this game was huge tonight," Hrynyk said. "When we practice something hard, we succeed."

After a 1-for-5 start on the night, the Hawks finished the game 20-for-24 with Mike Banks hitting two to give the Hawks a 65-63 lead with 23 seconds left and Frankie Cleope finishing off with two of his own for the final score.

The Tomcats (10-7, 1-3), however, controlled the game from the beginning taking a 34-20 lead into the half with help from Andrew Dockery, who tallied 6 points in the first half finishing up with the same in the second.

Jamar Shepard led the Tomcats with 14 points, but it was a missed free-throw with 14.2 ticks remaining that kept the lead on the Hawks' side at 65-64.

The Hawks struggled through the first three quarters hitting layups and missing the boards.

"I was thinking we were suffering from loss-of-big man-itus," Wolfsmith said. "I made a coaching mistake not pressuring a pressing team which we did in the fourth quarter."

While Hrynyk led the team on the scoreboard, he also helped give the Hawks some emotion, finishing the second half with 22 points.

"Cory's the man," Wolfsmith said. "That's a statement game for anyone scouting him, and that's a statement game for the conference."

"Momentum's a big thing," Hrynyk said. "Once we tied it up, it kept on swinging, and we decided to get pumped up."

Marc Little added 11 points to the Hawks total while Ryan Hayden finished with 13 for the Tomcats and Ryan Boatright 9.