With Aidan Cooper missing his second straight game, Hiawatha head coach Andre Charles wanted to tweak his lineup.

So he gave sophomore guard Colby Wylde a breather. He also gave him some motivation, apparently.

Wylde scored 27 points off the bench, helping the Hawks erase an early five-point deficit and take control for a 69-59 win against DePue on Tuesday.

“I love my coach, but I took offense,” Wylde said. “That killer mindset was in. I just went in and attacked.”

The Little Giants (5-15) scored the first five points, and there were five lead changes and six ties, the last of which came when DePue’s Diego Perez stole the ball and fed it ahead to Pedro Lopez.

That knotted things up at 24 with 3:17 left in the first half. But the Hawks (9-12) scored 11 of the next 13 points - six by Wylde, five by Jackson Davenport. Wylde was 4 for 7 on 3-pointers in the second quarter and 7 for 16 from long range in the game.

“The last couple of games, it is something we were working toward, so it doesn’t have to be all on his shoulders as a sophomore,” Charles said. “He understands his role real well. It’s just to be a young guy like that, and with the skills he’s got, you have to calm him down and soothe him down.”

The Hawks led 35-30 at halftime, and the Little Giants never got closer than five in the second half. Perez had a monster game of his own with 24 points and went 4 for 9 from 3-point range.

Nico Lopez had 12 points and seven rebounds for DePue, while Sebastian Godinez and Joel Mendez had eight rebounds each.

“I feel like we could have played better,” Perez said. “I mean, it was a decent performance, but we were lazy on defense. We could have played better on defense for sure. But that’s what we expect from a young team.”

DePue kept things close thanks to a 39-33 edge on the boards. Part of the Hiawatha rebounding deficit was due to Cooper’s absence.

The Hawks’ senior big man rolled an ankle in PE on Thursday and has missed the last two games. He’s expected back Friday and is just 28 points away from 1,000 for his career.

“With him out we have a gap in rebounding, because he’s our leading rebounder,” said Davenport, a 6-foot-1 junior point guard who grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds. “So someone else needed to step up, and I have the height and I can go get the rebounds.”

Davenport also provided a scoring boost for the Hawks. He was 5 for 13 on 3-pointers and finished with 19 points.

Charles said Davenport has come a long way in his development.

“He really didn’t want to be a point guard when we first started,” Charles said. “He has confidence in the role I gave him, and he stepped up and appreciated that role. As good a shooter as he is, you just have to get him in rhythm and get him shots the way he needs his shots.”

Austin Rylko had six points and six rebounds for Hiawatha. Elijah Beaver finished with six points, six rebounds and three steals for the Hawks, while Caiden Wiegartz added nine points.

The Hawks are a victory away from matching their win total from last year. They host Mooseheart (1-6, 1-4 Northeastern Athletic Conference) in a conference game and are 4-3 in their new conference since leaving the Little Ten.

Charles said he isn’t focused on milestones like the 10-win mark, or posting the program’s first winning season since 1996-97, or winning its first regional since 1988.

“We can’t focus on the future, we have to focus on the now,” Charles said. “When we focus on the now, it’s going to be better for our wins, it’s going to be better for our confidence, and it’s going to be better for the program as we progress to the future.

“Milestones aren’t really set, because I think of milestones as a tombstone. It isn’t set yet. We’re still living. We’re still alive, and we’re still rolling.”

The Hawks lost five of seven to start January, though they won four of five to start December.

Even though there’s been a lot of ups and downs for the Hawks this year, Wylde is confident in his team when the postseason rolls around.

“I think we can beat any team that steps on the court with us,” Wylde said. “I don’t think anybody can mess with us on the court. I think when we play our best basketball, we are the best team.”