“I thought our boys gutted out a tough one tonight,” said Hillcrest Head Coach Ryan Garvin. “Coach Hintermeister always seems to have his guys ready and they were definitely ready for us. We started out well offensively, but were a step slow on the defensive end tonight. Our young men made just enough hustle plays at the end to seal it. Noah Brumfield stepped in and had some big rebounds for us at the end. Zeke Ihrke played in the passing lanes and got a couple huge steals at the end as did Caden Fischer. It wasn't pretty, but they can't all be pretty! If you can't win one going away and doing lots of things well, at least you can do enough right things at the end of the game, maintain focus, and finish with some tough-nosed grit. Rich Iverson would be proud!”

Micah Foss and Sam Brumfield were both in double figures, scoring 14 and 11 points, respectively.  Fischer added 9 points, Ihrke 8 and Noah Brumfield 8.  Noah and Caden each had 6 boards and Ihrke had 4 steals.  The Comets shot 42% (20-48) from the field and made 37.5% (6-16) from behind the arc.

Leaders for B-E were Titus Fuller (16 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals), Dezmond White (13 points, 5 rebounds), Tyler Bitzan (8 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals) and Kobe Reiland (7 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists).

“I thought we played 32 really good minutes of basketball,” said B-E Head Coach Trent Hintermeister. “With 4 minutes left we didn't play with composure and turned the ball over too many times. The game was back and forth all night long and it was a fun, competitive game. We are continuing to get better and that is the exciting part, but we have to be more composed if we want to win close battles against quality opponents. Our next 3 weeks of basketball is going to be a grind. We play some of the top teams in our section who are all ranked in the top 20 for class A. It will be fun to see what we are made of.” 

Hillcrest (3-4) will play at Underwood on Tuesday, while Brandon-Evansville (4-3) will host Ashby on Tuesday night.