The Hillsdale College men's basketball team kicked off the new year in style on Saturday afternoon, routing G-MAC co-leader Malone in a dominant 70-51 performance at home.

The contest was a rematch of a 63-57 Hillsdale loss at Malone in early December, and the Chargers got their revenge in full on Saturday, showing how far it had come from that early defeat with a dominant performance at both ends of the floor.

Hillsdale held Malone to its lowest point total of the season with a focused and determined defensive performance. The Pioneers shot just 35.8% from the floor and 5 of 18 from 3-point range, going deep into the shot clock on most possessions and finding little to no answer to break through the wall the Chargers built at that end of the floor.

Building on that defensive performance, Hillsdale also had an efficient game on the offensive side of the ball. The Chargers shot a solid 53.2% from the field, overcoming a 5 of 16 performance from the 3-point line with solid finishing at the rim, an impressive night on midrange shots, and a 15 of 18 performance from the free throw line.

Hillsdale got off to a phenomenal start, leading 19-9 10 minutes in and never trailing in the contest, but the Chargers didn't really pull away until the second half, when Hillsdale upped the intensity at both ends of the floor. The Chargers opened the period on an 11-2 run to stretch the lead back to double-digits, while holding Malone to just one field goal in the first seven minutes.

From there, the Chargers slowly but steadily pulled away, growing its lead to as large as 22 points on a Tommy Morgan 3-pointer with 1:53 to play. 

Hillsdale used a balanced scoring attack, led by senior Ashton Janowski. After missing the Chargers' final game before the Christmas break with an injury, Janowski was back in force today for the Chargers, finishing with a team-leading 18 points, four rebounds and four assists. Morgan chipped in an efficient 14 points, Cole McWhinnie added 10 points and three assists, and junior Caleb Glaser impressed in his first career start, showing out with eight points and 12 rebounds.

CJ Yarian added four points, four rebounds and four blocks for the Chargers.

The victory is a big one for Hillsdale, which improves to 5-7 overall, 2-2 in the G-MAC. Chaos across the league means Hillsdale sits just a game behind the G-MAC leader, Northwood, and part of a logjam of nine teams at the top of the conference with the same number of league losses. That means the Chargers are still very much in the G-MAC title race, and will look to keep pace with the other contenders with another big game against a strong Walsh squad on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena.