By John Rittenhouse
A strong performance late in the game by Hills-Beaver Creek carried the Patriot boys to 61-48 victory over Ellsworth in the first round of the South Section 3A Basketball Tournament in Fulda Thursday.
The two Tri-County Conference foes battled to a draw at 34 in the first 23 minutes of the game. H-BC, however, picked up the pace in the final nine minutes while outscoring the Panthers 27-14 to win by 13.
The victory gave H-BC an 8-14 record heading into Saturday's quarterfinals in Luverne, where the eighth-seeded Patriots played No. 1 Southwest Christian.
Ellsworth, the tournament's ninth seed, ends the season with a 5-14 record.
Thursday's game was a tight one until H-BC took control with its late surge.
Trailing 24-20 at halftime, Ellsworth trimmed H-BC's advantage to one point three different times early in the third quarter before H-BC went on a 6-0 run capped by Matt Buck's field goal at 3:46 to open a 34-27 cushion.
Ellsworth, however, countered with a 7-0 run that ended with Curt Schilling nailing a pair of free throws with 1:43 remaining to knot the score at 34.
The score remained tied until H-BC gained a 38-34 lead with field goals by Lance Crawford and David Top in the final 35 seconds of the period.
H-BC followed its late surge in the third quarter by scoring the first six points of the fourth quarter to gain a 44-34 lead. The Panthers did trim the difference to seven points at 47-40, but H-BC outscored them 14-8 the rest of way to ice the contest.
The game started slowly with H-BC sporting a 5-0 lead five minutes into the contest. Ellsworth scored the next three points before the Patriots went on a 7-4 run capped by Top's field goal with one second left to make it a 12-7 game at periodÕs end.
H-BC expanded its lead to seven points twice in the second quarter only to watch the Panthers creep within two points (22-20) when Schilling hit a field goal with 30 seconds left. Brad Haak countered with a field goal for H-BC with 10 seconds left to make it a 24-20 game at the intermission.
"I don't think either team played really well in the first half," said Patriot coach Steve Wiertzema. "I thought we played pretty well in the second half."
Panther coach Ken Kvaale said the difference in the game was H-BC's work on the boards in the second half.
"I give them a lot of credit because they played hungry in the fourth quarter. It was a close game until the fourth quarter when they really came at us. They killed us on the offensive boards, especially in the fourth quarter," Kvaale said.
David Top and Lyle DeBoer, who netted seven and 11 points respectively in the fourth quarter, led the Patriots with 13 points each. Crawford and Matt Buck added 11 and 10 points. Buck had nine rebounds and three assists, while DeBoer added six rebounds and four assists. Haak added six rebounds for the winners.
Schilling, who had five rebounds and three steals, and Dean Moss scored 13 and 10 points respectively for Ellsworth. Travis Jenniges, and Josh Kramer snared five rebounds each. Brant Deutsch had three assists.
Box score
Ellsworth
Schilling 4 1 2-3 13, Jenniges 4 0 0-1 8, Kvaale 3 0 0-0 6, Moss 1 2 2-3 10, Chapa 0 1 0-0 3, Deutsch 0 1 0-0 3, Kramer 0 0 0-1 0, Peters 2 0 1-2 5.
Team statistics
Ellsworth: 19 of 53 field goals (36 percent), five of 12 free throws (42 percent), 26 rebounds, 16 turnovers.
H-BC: 21 of 41 field goals (51 percent), 19 of 32 free throws (59 percent), 29 rebounds, 15 turnovers.