“Tough one for our boys tonight,” said Hillcrest Head Coach Ryan Garvin.  “Hard to go back-to-back against physical teams on the road.  However, we didn’t really do ourselves any favors tonight on the offensive end. In our first 9 possessions we had 2 total passes in the half court.  We did a lot of dribbling with our heads down, which resulted in 5 turnovers.  When we finally settled into our offense and moved the ball with the pass, we turned a 0-6 deficit into a 17-11 lead, unfortunately, we had a hard time finishing at the rim and settled for a lot of deep 3’s.  In many ways I thought we were lucky to be up 23-21 at the half.”

The Comets were led by Noah Brumfield with 22 points.  Luke Christensen had 10 points and 4 rebounds, Justin Peterson had 8 points and Preston Berge contributed 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

“The stat line that jumped out to me was that we, unofficially, tallied 5 assists and 18 turnovers,” continued Garvin.  “Breckenridge deserves all sorts of credit for playing physically against us tonight, but quite a few of these turnovers would probably be considered unforced.  We spent too many possessions dribbling with our heads down.  That not how we initiate and create good offense.  The start of the second half was much of the same.  We went scoreless in the first 12 possessions of the second half and turned the ball over 7 times and missed a handful of shots at the rim in that stretch.  We played physically enough to finally get to the free throw line and break the 10-point run that Breckenridge developed to start the second half.”

Hillcrest led 43-41 with about 4 minutes left, but the Cowboys went on an 8-0 run to give themselves a lead that they never relinquished.

Landon Blaufuss scored 11 points and completed a double double with 10 rebounds for Breckenridge.  Alex Sanchez scored 7 points and pulled down 3 rebounds, and Daymon Smith had 6 points and 7 boards.

“I thought we played a full 36 minutes to get the win against a very talented Hillcrest team,” commented Breckenridge Head Coach Jordan Christensen.  “As a team this was easily our best defensive performance of the season.  Everyone stepped up, guys on the court and the bench guys brought all the juice all night!”

Hillcrest (14-4, 9-2 LEC) will be at Parkers Prairie on Friday night.

Breckenridge (3-14) snapped an eight game losing skid with the victory.  The Cowboys host Barnesville on Thursday and travel to Wheaton for a Saturday game against Border West.