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Patriot boys upset Coyotes Saturday

Lead Summary
By
John Rittenhouse

The Hills-Beaver Creek boys’ basketball team staged a mild upset to open the South Section 3A Tournament in Worthington Saturday.
The fifth-seeded Patriots lost a pair of games to No. 4 Heron Lake-Okabena-Fulda during the regular season, including a 17-point loss to the Coyotes in Hills during the final game of the regular season.
That didn’t seem to matter during Saturday’s quarterfinal as the Patriots registered a 50-47 victory.
The win sends 9-15 H-BC back to Worthington for Thursday’s semifinals, where the Patriots meet No. 1 Southwest Christian at 6 p.m.
H-BC’s Kyle Kueter scored five consecutive points 2:34 into the game to give the Patriots an early lead that swelled to seven points (11-4) when Parker Gehrke buried a three-point shot at the 9:10 mark of the first half.
HL-O-F countered with an 11-0 run to gain a 15-11 lead with 5:04 left, but the Coyotes couldn’t protect their advantage. 
Jax Wysong regained the lead (19-18) for H-BC with a field goal at the 2:12 mark and Easton Harnack capped the scoring in the first half when he added a field goal with 42 seconds left to give the Patriots a 21-18 cushion.
The Patriots put themselves in a position to coast to victory when Oliver Deelstra capped a 16-3 run with a field goal at 11:37 that gave H-BC a 37-23 lead.
H-BC, however, struggled at the charity stripe over the next 11 minutes, and the Coyotes took advantage of the situation to trim the difference to two points (49-47) with 20 seconds left.
H-BC’s Gavin Wysong sank one free throw with 16 seconds remaining and the Patriots blanked HL-O-F the rest of the way to win by three.
Jax Wysong turned in an 18-point, 14-rebound, four-assist effort for the winners, while Kueter blocked eight shots and collected seven rebounds.
 
Box score
G.Wysong 1 0 1-4 3, Harnack 2 0 2-5 6, Gehrke 0 1 0-0 3, Deelstra 1 0 0-1 2, Baker 0 0 0-0 0, Z.Wysong 2 1 2-5 9, J.Wysong 8 0 2-4 18, Kueter 4 0 1-8 9.
 
Team statistics
H-BC: 20 of 48 field goals (42 percent), eight of 27 free throws (30 percent), 27 rebounds, six turnovers.
HL-O-F: 16 of 50 field goals (32 percent), six of eight free throws (75 percent), 20 rebounds, two turnovers.

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