The Hillsboro basketball teams completed the pre-holiday portion of their schedule Friday night, traveling to Remington for what turned out to be a pair of lopsided games — with opposite outcomes. The Trojan girls experienced the disappointment of a 51-30 defeat while the Trojans boys rolled to an impressive 74-48 victory, playing perhaps their best game of the season so far.
GIRLS — As has frequently been the case this season, the Hillsboro girls struggled to find a consistent source of offense in their matchup with the unbeaten Broncos (6-0). Matched against a team with more height, athleticism and varsity experience, The Trojans made only one of eight shots from the floor in the first quarter, and trailed 12-3. By halftime the score was 23-8 after a 2-for-14 shooting performance in the second quarter.
Remington pushed the lead to 26-8 in the first minute of the third quarter, and then to 38-17 before Alex Ratzlaff completed a traditional three-point play with 2.6 seconds to play in the period to lower the margin to 38-20 at the final break. The Broncos built their biggest lead of the night at 51-26 with three minutes to play before finishing with the 21-point victory.
Ratzlaff scored 13 points to lead the Trojans, who slipped to 1-4 for the season.
BOYS — The Trojan boys took advantage of some cold shooting by Remington to assume early command of their game. Hillsboro built a 7-2 lead in the first three minutes on the way to a 14-8 lead at the first break. The offense picked up for both teams in the second quarter, as Hillsboro inflated the lead to 35-22 at halftime.
But the best was yet to come for Hillsboro and their senior scorer, Micah Allen. Sitting on eight points at halftime, Allen suddenly got hot, exploding for 17 points in the quarter over a three-minute span, including 15 straight for the Trojans on four three-pointers — one of which turned into a four-point play when he was fouled shooting — and a two-point drive to the hoop.
The only thing that slowed Allen was a cut on his chin when he dove for a loose ball. Allen was forced sit on the bench for several minutes to tend to the bleeding. He finished the game with 25 points as the surprising Trojans take a 4-1 record into the holidays.
