A late field goal by Adrian junior Nick Reyne gave the Dragon boys’ basketball team a 58-56 victory over Hills-Beaver Creek Thursday in Hills.

Adrian, which trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half and faced an 11-point deficit early in the second half rallied to open a seven-point (56-49) advantage when Kyle Kilgore converted a field goal with 2:31 left to play.

H-BC climbed back into contention by scoring seven unanswered points and knotted the score at 56 when Jeff Sandbulte pumped in a field goal in the final 30 seconds.

Adrian, however, made the game-clinching play with three seconds remaining.

Kilgore, who led the Dragons with 22 points, 14 rebounds and four assists, looked like he wanted to take the last shot of regulation play. Instead of pulling the trigger on would have been a contested 15-foot jumper, Kilgore delivered a pass to an open Reyne under the basket. Reyne banked home his shot to give AHS a 58-56 lead.

H-BC called for a timeout with 1.5 seconds left, but a turnover kept the Patriots from attempting a shot.

It was the home-standing Patriots who dominated play in the game’s first half.

H-BC scored the game’s first seven points on the way to building a 17-5 advantage when Seth Nuffer drained a field goal at the 8:24 mark of the opening stanza.

A 13-6 run ending with a layup by Adrian’s Kody Henning trimmed the difference to five points (23-18) with 2:17 remaining in the half.

H-BC countered with a 9-2 spurt ending with a field goal by Nuffer with 50 seconds left that gave the Patriots a 32-20 lead that Adrian would trim to 10 points (32-22) before the first half was complete.

After AHS sliced H-BC’s lead to eight points at three different occasions in the early stages of the second half, Patriot Dylan Gehrke canned a three-point shot to give the hosts a 42-31 advantage.

The Dragons battled back to knot the score at 45 when Henning buried a field goal at the 7:35 mark of the stanza, but H-BC sported 47-45 and 49-48 edges during the next 2:30.

It looked like AHS gained control of the game when the Dragons scored eight unanswered points to open a 56-49 lead with 2:31 left to play.

H-BC, however, received back-to-back field goals by Nuffer and Sandbulte’s tying-shot that knotted the score at 56 before Reyne settled the issue in the final seconds.

Brandon Weidert (11 points and 10 rebounds), Kody Henning (11 points) and Reyne (seven rebounds) emerged as Adrian’s statistical leaders along with Kilgore.

H-BC received big games from Nuffer (20 points and three assists), Gehrke (17 points and three assists), Sandbulte (10 points) and Jordan Larson (15 rebounds, five steals and four assists.

Box score

Adrian

Henning 3 1 2-3 11, Reyne 2 1 2-4 9, Polzine 0 0 0-0 0, Kilgore 10 0 2-2 22, Weidert 3 1 2-4 11, Reker 1 1 0-0 5.

H-BC

Larson 2 0 1-2 5, Vaughn 1 0 0-1 2, Bass 1 0 0-2 2, Gehrke 4 2 1-2 17, Sandbulte 5 0 0-2 10, Klarenbeek 0 0 0-0 0, Nuffer 9 0 2-2 20.

Team statistics

Adrian: 23 of 52 field goals (44 percent), eight of 18 free throws (44 percent), 34 rebounds, 17 turnovers.

H-BC: 24 of 59 field goals (41 percent), four of 11 free throws (36 percent), 31 rebounds, 11 turnovers.