It was sold out, the game of the year, Hillcrest Hawks vs our beloved Oak Forest Bengals on the Bengals’ home court. There was a lot riding on this game as we were fighting for an outright conference championship. The start of the first was slow with the Bengals down 6 in the beginning of the quarter, but Jayson Kent started out the scoring for the Bengals on an easy layup, and the Bengals fought to tie it up, 14-14, to end the first. The Bengals took the lead with good ball movement and fast breaks to go on a run. They kept up the intensity and with solid defense held the Hawks to 10 points in the 2nd quarter, which meant that the Bengals went into halftime with an 8-point lead, 32-24, at halftime.

It was a very slow start for the Bengals after the halftime break, only scoring 4 points in the 3rd. The officials took away some easy baskets during the quarter, calling multiple charges and sending the ball the other way. Meanwhile the Hawks were putting up a tough fight to come back, down 44-36 after the 3rd. The Bengals needed a big push to come back after a rough 3rd quarter and being down by 8. The Hawks kept adding on to their lead, getting it to double digits multiple times. A clutch 3 by Jayson Kent with 1:40 left brought the Bengals within 5. Then Jay Taylor responded with another three with 39.7 seconds left. Even with this push by the Bengals late in the 4th, they sadly fell to the Hawks and will now split the conference championship. It was a tough loss for the Bengals with a final score of 66-59. With the defeat, Oak Forest moves to 26-3 on the year.