The Hancock Owls shot 40% (21-52) from the field and made 22-of-28 (78.6%) of their free throw attempts on Wednesday night as the top-seeded team in the South half of Section 6A opened the playoffs with a convincing 68-22 win over the Ortonville Trojans. The Owls led 38-13 at the half and held the Trojans to just 9 second half points.
Rylee Hanson and Misti Zempel led the Owls with 10 points and 4 rebounds each. Tori Pahl added 9 points and three Hancock players, Carlee Hanson, Alexis Staples and Kaitlyn Rohloff contributed 7 points apiece. Staples had a team high 4 assists and 6 steals. Lindsey Mattson also had 6 steals in the game.
The Owls forced 35 Ortonville turnovers on the night.
Hancock (17-0) will now host Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley (9-6) in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs at 7:00pm Friday night. C-G-B is seeded fifth in the South half of 6A. They won their playin round game on Wednesday night, beating Wheaton/Herman-Norcross by the score of 56-54.