by Derek White
The Colby Eagles basketball team took the home court one last time in the regular season for this year’s seniors. While it was a great night celebrating this class’s participation, the game slowly spiraled out of control leading to an Eagle loss in double-overtime 61-58.
The game was a tale of two halves, the second half went to Hugoton as they made some adjustments during the halftime break. They were making life hard for the Eagles to penetrate the defense, and to get clear shots at the basket. The first half was almost the opposite with Colby jumping out ahead in the first quarter by ten points.
The offense took a little time to warm up, but they started to find their shots and spread the points around. Senior Brayden Foss led the team with 5 points, followed by senior Guy Tubbs and junior Jordan Jones putting up 4 points to lead Hugoton 4-14 to end the first quarter.
Colby’s offense slowed a little bit in the second quarter, and their defense started to let up allowing Hugoton to keep pace with Colby in the second to hold a 10 point lead going into halftime 14-24. Tubbs continued to score putting in another 6 points, with Jones providing the other 4 points in the quarter.
After halftime, Hugoton began to chip away at the lead, outscoring Colby by two points off four three-pointers and five free-throws to get their offense on track. Their defense was the key to their success however, they made it tough to get the ball inside, and made Colby take tough shots.
Still being their best scoring period, Colby got 7 points from senior Grant Stephens and Max Kersenbrock hit his third point of the night to end the third quarter 31-39, but mental errors allowed the momentum to change in this game. Colby was called for back-to-back fouls midway through the third, giving Hugoton free-throw attempts, and then they hit a big time three pointer to close the lead to eight points.
Hugoton closed the gap due to making tough shots and Colby’s mistakes until the game became tied up, then they took the lead with 1:46 remaining. The game then turned very sloppy as both teams were feeling the pressure to win the close matchup. The game ended in a tie after regulation 50-50.
The two teams then went into overtime and traded baskets for five minutes until ending again in a tie at 55-55. In the second over-time, Hugoton’s Jay Acosta took over the game hitting tough shots to steal the game 67-61 on senior night.
Colby was led in scoring by Jones with 23 points, followed by Tubbs with 18 points, Foss had 8 points, Stephens ended with 7 points, and senior Kersenbrock finished with 3 points. Next, Colby will be Feb. 28 against Russell in the first round of sub-state action at the Colby Event Center.
Comments