Micah Arens and Preston Yohnke were also in double figures with 14 and 11 points, respectively.  Spencer Yohnke added 8 points.

“Parkers didn’t run anything that specifically gave us problems, they simply out-hustled us in the first half,” stated Hillcrest Head Coach Ryan Garvin.  “They grabbed every loose rebound and seemingly recovered every deflected ball.”

Hillcrest was led by Thomas Zwiers who had 17 points, and Micah Foss who finished with a dozen. 

“We cut the lead down to nine points with under six minutes left thanks to a run of intense defense led by sophomore Evan Gould,” reported Garvin.  “Some things don’t show up in the statistics, but Evan came off the bench and started communicating and playing with the type of energy the guys regularly talk about wanting to play with.  It was good to see us end the game that way.  Hopefully, we can put together longer stretches of that type of team defense on Friday.”

The Panthers (2-0) will play at Battle Lake on Thursday night, and Hillcrest will host West Central Area on Friday night.