By John Rittenhouse
Hills-Beaver Creek nearly pulled off a huge boys' basketball upset when the Patriots hosted Tri-County Conference rival Southwest Christian in Hills Friday.
The Patriots had the two-time defending state champions on the ropes as they opened a 16-point lead over the Eagles during the second quarter.
SWC, however, pulled to within 13 points of the Patriots by halftime before outscoring H-BC 38-19 in the second half while recording a 52-46 win.
The setback snapped what was a two-game winning streak for the 2-4 Patriots. SWC improved to 5-1 with the win.
It looked like it was going to be H-BC's night when the Patriots dominated play in the first half.
After SWC scored the first two points of the game, H-BC spent the rest of the first period outscoring the Eagles 16-2 while opening a 16-4 cushion.
The Patriots increased their lead to 17 points (23-16) during the second quarter, but the Eagles used an 8-4 surge late in the stanza to make the difference 27-14 at halftime.
H-BC scored the first two points of the third quarter to increase its lead to 15 points before the Eagles put together an 8-0 run to trail 29-21.
The Patriots recovered from SWC's run by padding their advantage to 13 points as the third quarter progressed, but SWC rallied late in the stanza and trailed 37-33 at period's end.
The Eagles outscored H-BC 13-3 in the first half of the fourth quarter to move in front 46-40. A pair of field goals by Matt Buck pulled the Patriots within two points of the Eagles twice in the final two minutes of play, but SWC fought off the challenge to win the game by six points.
In the end, poor shooting by the Patriots in the second half opened the door for SWCÕs late rally.
After their impressive first half, H-BC was limited to six of 28 (21 percent) shooting from the field in the third and fourth quarters. Making just three of eight free throws in the fourth quarter also hurt the Patriots.
"It was a hard-fought-game the whole way," said Patriot coach Steve Wiertzema. "That's just the way we play each other. We played good defense the whole game, and we really played well coming out of the box in the first half. We just had a little trouble scoring in the third and fourth quarters."
Brad Haak recorded a double-double for H-BC by leading the Patriots with 16 rebounds and 10 points. Darin and Lyle DeBoer charted six and five steals respectively for H-BC.
The Patriots play in Westbrook tomorrow.
Box score
D.DeBoer 2 0 0-2 4, Van Batavia 0 0 0-0 0, Van Maanen 1 0 0-0 2, Fransman 0 0 4-4 4, Haak 4 0 2-7 10, L.DeBoer 2 1 0-0 7, Top 1 0 3-3 5, Crawford 3 0 0-0 6, Buck 3 0 2-2 8.
Team statistics
H-BC: 17 of 58 field goals (29 percent), 11 of 18 free throws (61 percent), 36 rebounds, 22 turnovers.
SWC: 20 of 58 field goals (34 percent), nine of 15 free throws (60 percent), 24 rebounds, 22 turnovers.