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Short-handed Rural boys drop 55-54 heartbreaker to No. 6-ranked Blue Valley
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Playing without injured senior starters John Hoytal and Simon Rowley, Washburn Rural boys basketball came within 4.2 seconds of pulling off an upset victory over No. 6-ranked Blue Valley Wednesday night, with the Tigers escaping with a 55-54 road win over the Junior Blues on Brendan Walsh's game-winning 3-pointer.
Sophomore Brooks Ballard scored a game-high 22 points with five 3-pointers in Washburn Rural's 55-54 loss to Blue Valley. [Photo by Doug Walker/Special to TSN]
"I'm proud of our guys,'' Washburn Rural coach Alex Hutchins said. "I'm proud of the way we fought and proud of the way we played. It just comes down to a couple of possessions here and there at the end, just a little bit of execution.
"I thought we played really, really smart and really sound to the scout until about the last two minutes of the game.''
The short-handed Junior Blues led for much of the night in a game that was close throughout as sophomore Brooks Ballard powered 9-6 Rural with a game-high 22 points and five 3-pointers, but Walsh, a junior, scored the Tigers' final seven points as Blue Valley improved to 11-5.
"When the other team's got the best player in the gym, you try to make other people make plays and we let their best player score their last seven points,'' Hutchins said. "We've got to be smarter than that. We've got to make someone else do it.''
Blue Valley led 13-11 at the end of the opening quarter, but Ballard scored the final five points of the first half to give the Junior Blues a 27-21 at the break.
Rural went up by eight points (29-21) on a bucket by junior Cooper Schmidt to open the second half, but Blue Valley battled back to tie the game at 38-38 entering the fourth quarter.
There were two ties and three lead changes the rest of the way, including four straight points by Ballard to give Rural a 54-52 advantage with 11.6 seconds left before Walsh struck the final blow for the Tigers.
Washburn Rural junior Cooper Scmidt scored eight points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Wednesday's 55-54 loss to Blue Valley. [Photo by Doug Walker/Special to TSN]
Ballard was the lone Junior Blue in double figures while 6-foot-10 Schmidt scored eight points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Lady Scots snap five-game losing streak with 50-31 win over Washington
By JUSTIN BURKHARDT
TopSports.news
Highland Park girls basketball, which was fighting a five-game losing streak entering Tuesday's home Meadowlark Conference game against Kansas City-Washington broke through with a 50-31 home win.
Junior Miluv Cosey led a balanced Highland Park attack with 12 points in Tuesday's 50-31 Meadowlark Conference win over KC-Washington. [File photo/TSN[
Zayah Kincade hit a 3-pointer to get things going for the Scots as they would get off to a 7-0 start before Washington would go on a 12-1 run to take the lead 12-8 to end the first quarter.
The Scots would come out in the second quarter and go on a 6-0 run but Scot junior Miluv Cosey would pick up her second foul of the game and have to go to the bench, which would allow the Wildcats to go on their own run to tie the contest at 16.
Senior Koralee Jones would get two baskets in a row to put her team up 20-16 and they would follow that up with another Kincade 3-pointer to go into the locker room with a 26-20 lead.
Cosey would make her return in the third quarter and score eight straight points of her team-high 12 to stretch the Highland Park lead to 34-22.
“At halftime while I was talking, Miluv really took it to heart,'' Highland Park coach Rob Brown said. "I could tell she was looking at me in my eyes. And she went on that third-quarter run where she had eight straight points, all off steals. If she keeps doing that she'll help us out a lot.”
“It was just the talk that we had during halftime, you know we came together,'' Cosey said. "He told us, we just got to stretch the lead out and I feel that's what we did. I came out with a better mindset and my confidence goes down when I miss a couple shots, but he knows how to motivate me to get out there and let it out. And that's what I feel I did.”
The Scots they would leave the third quarter with a commanding 39-26 lead and the halftime message would be enough as they would go on to pick up the 19-point victory.
Kingcannon’s 26 not enough as Scots fall to KC-Washington, 62-51
By JUSTIN BURKHARDT
TopSports.news
Junior JoJo Kingcannon scored a game-high 26 points for Highland Park Tuesday night, but Kansas City-Washington pulled away in the second half for a 62-51 Meadowlark Conference win at Hi Park.
Junior JoJo Kingcannon (11) led Highland Park with 26 points in the Scots' 62-51 loss to Kansas City-Washington Tuesday night. [File photo/TSN]
The Scots, who lost nine seniors from a year ago and with Kingcannon being the lone returner with major varsity experience and coach Nate Wallace in his first season as a head coach, Highland Park knew it was going to go through growing pains this season and entered Tuesday's game on a five-game losing streak.
“Poise. I think we're losing the close ones that we have lost over the season just because of the experience factor, understanding how to value the possession, understanding kind of what I want and who I want to have the ball at certain times of certain possessions to give us the best opportunity to win,'' Wallace said.
Both teams would come out giving everything they had early as they would trade basket for basket and tie it up at six early in the game.
After a Washington 3-pointer, which the Scots would answer with a Kingcannon 3 for his seventh point of the first quarter to make it 9-9, Washington would then hit two consecutive treys to end the quarter with the 15-9 lead.
The second quarter would see both teams light up the scoreboard as Kingcannon would go to work again for his team.
Kingcannon would score the first basket of the quarter and later score five straight points to get within one at 21-20.
The Wildcats and Scots would continue to battle it out until Kingcannon would drive and get the and-one to tie it up 26 and hit the ensuing free throw to giver Highland Park the lead by a point.
Washington would then get fouled and make both free throws to re-take the lead at 28-26 before Kingcannon would drive again and get the shot to go back up 29-28.
Washington would then out-score the Scots 7-1 in the final two minutes of the second quarter to go into halftime with the lead, 35-30.
The Scots would come out of the locker room with sophomore Davion Anderson hitting his first basket of the night with a 3-pointer to get within two before Kingcannon would get fouled shooting a 3-pointer and hit all three charities to enable Highland Park to re-take the lead, 36-35.
Elliot Berry for Washington would get a shot to fall and give Washington a 37-36 advantage and that would be all it wrote for the Scots, who would run out of gas at the end of the quarter when Washington would go on a 11-0 run to make it 52-40 to end the third.
The Scots would play catch-up in the fourth and came up short in the 11-point defeat.
