The Hillsboro girls played a competitive first half against the Hesston Swathers in their Trojan Classic semifinal game on Thursday night. Unfortunately, they couldn?t maintain their intensity in the second half and dropped a 45-28 decision.
The Trojans scored the first four points of the game and were still tied with the Swathers at 6-6 at the first break.
Hesston took the lead for good when Mallory Schroeder scored at the 6:21 mark of the second period to give the Swathers a 9-8 lead. They bumped the lead to 16-12 by halftime.
Hesston started to pull away with a 10-2 slow surge through the third quarter before Dakota Kaufman scored a pair of baskets to cut the Swather lead to 26-18 at the 1:18 mark. But Hesston pushed the lead back to 30-18 by the end of the third quarter on a pair of free throws and basket in the paint.
Kaufman started the fourth quarter with a free throw, but Hesston scored the next six points to put the game safely away at 36-20 with 3:22 to go.
Hesston outshot the Trojans 46 percent to 35 percent from the floor, and held a significant advantage at the line, 9-of-14 to 3-of-4. The most glaring difference, though, was rebounding, where Hesston held a 29-16 advantage.
Kaufman led HHS with seven points while Kelcie Frey scored 12 and Schroeder 10 for Hesston.
The loss drops Hillsboro?s season record to 5-6 and puts them into the third-place game against Marion at 2:45 p.m. Saturday.
