“After we jumped out to an 8-1 lead, we struggled to take care of the basketball and seemed to play ourselves into a bit of a frenzy,” said Head Coach Ryan Garvin of Hillcrest. “We turned the ball over 12 times in the half and shot 36% from the field which put us down by eleven.” 

The Comets picked up the pace in the second half and finished at 43% (22/51) for the night.  The Panthers shot 44% (23-52), but held a 38-28 edge on the boards.

Micah Foss (19 points, 2 assists), Sam Brumfield (17 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 steals) and Zeke Ihrke (6 points, 4 steals) led the way for Hillcrest.  Caden Fischer added 4 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists, and Yuchan Ha had 3 assists and 4 boards to go along with 3 points.

“I thought we played better offensively in the second half, but only got one great stretch of stops in the middle of the half, otherwise, it seemed that we were a step slow or made some early-season undisciplined mistakes that Parkers capitalized on,” noted Coach Garvin. “Coach Felt does a great job with his guys. He seems unflappable and his team takes on that posture. When we made a run, they did a great job doing that one right thing that held us off.  All that said, I like a lot about this squad of Comets. We're looking forward to continue to refine the tools that we have on this team.”

Hillcrest (1-2) will travel to Graceville on Tuesday night to face C-G-B, while Parkers Prairie (2-1) has a home game with Battle Lake.