KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Fort Hays State saw its 2017-18 season come to a close on Saturday (Mar. 3) as it fell in the MIAA Tournament Semifinals to Washburn 77-53. The Tigers finished with a record of 19-12, the 12th time in Mark Johnson’s 17 years as head coach that FHSU finished with at least 19 wins in a season. Washburn, now 22-8, moves on to the finals to play either Northwest Missouri State or Central Oklahoma.

FHSU Postgame Press Conference

Game Highlights

Fort Hays State’s only lead occurred on the first bucket of the game, a Hadley Gillum layup 40 seconds into the action. From that point it was all Washburn. The Ichabods went on a 14-2 run to take a 10-point lead and FHSU pulled the lead back to five twice. However, the lead grew to 21 by halftime, 41-20, when Washburn ended the half on a 22-6 run. The Tigers cut the lead inside 20 just once early in the second half and Washburn’s largest lead was 29 at the 14:27 mark.

Washburn hit 50.9 percent of its field goal attempts and limited the Tigers to just 30.6 percent shooting for the game. The Ichabods controlled the paint, outscoring the Tigers in low 46-10. The tough defense of the Ichabods forced the Tigers to shoot several long-range jump shots and they didn’t convert enough before the game got away quickly. Washburn outrebounded the Tigers 38-26.

Brady Skeens dominated the game in low for the Ichabods, going a perfect 9-of-9 from the field with 24 points and nine rebounds. He was 6-of-10 at the free-throw line. David Salach also played well in low, scoring 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting and a 3-of-3 effort at the charity stripe. Javion Blake added 13 points, while Tyas Martin finished with 12.

In the final game of his career, Gillum finished with 10 points, matching teammate Brady Werth for the team’s high-point honors for the game. Gillum ended his career with 1,079 points and 511 rebounds, the ninth player in program history to record at least 1,000 points and 500 rebounds in a career. He finished 17th on the career scoring list at FHSU. He became the program’s 20th 1,000-point scorer back on February 20 in a game at Nebraska-Kearney.

Besides the 10 points scored by Gillum and Werth, four Tigers finished with six points each. That group included Aaron Nicholson, Kyler Kinnamon, Trey O’Neil, and Jared Vitztum.

Fort Hays State reached the semifinals of the MIAA Tournament for the seventh time in the school’s 12-year membership with the conference (began in 2006-07).