It was a heartbreak Friday night in Brown Gymnasium, Jan. 16 as Hillsboro lost a pair of one-point games to Halstead in the final seconds.
The Trojan girls lost their game 26-25 while the boys fell short, 53-52.
The girls? game was close from start to finish, though both teams struggled to put the ball through the basket. Halstead led 7-6 after one quarter and 11-9 at the half.
Hillsboro came out of halftime aggressively and took an 18-15 lead with just under four minutes left in the third quarter. But Halstead finished the period with a 7-0 run take their largest lead of the night, 22-18, by the end of the quarter.
Halstead held a 26-22 lead with a minute left in the game when Kirsten Sooter sank a pair of free throws. But Allie Faul brought Hillsboro back into contention when she nailed a 3-pointer from the wing with 47 seconds left.
Halstead then missed the front end of a one-and-one with 34.9 seconds left. Hillsboro put up the last three shots of the game — but hit none of them as the game ended, 26-25.
Dakota Kaufman led the Trojans with nine points. Hillsboro managed only 11-for-41 shooting (27 percent) from the floor and only 1-for-5 from the line. Halstead shot 43 percent (10-23) from the field and 5-for-12 from the line.
With the loss, Hillsboro drops to 4-5.
In the boys? game, Hillsboro struggled to get in sync against a scrappy Dragon squad during the first half, trailing 12-11 after one quarter and 27-20 by halftime. But the Trojans picked up their game a notch to pull to within 42-40 after three quarters.
When David Loewen sank a pair of free throws with 5:13 left in the game, Hillsboro had its first lead of the night at 46-45 and still led 52-50 with 28.5 seconds to play after Jesse Allen made one of two free throws.
Halstead came down the court and Tyler Ratzlaff threw up an early 3-pointer that clanked off the back of the rim. Teammate Chris Santoya got the long rebound and put up a 3-pointer that missed, then Ratzlaff grabbed the ball again and drained a three from the top of the key with 10.4 seconds remaining.
Daniel Jost drove the length of the floor and got off an off-balance shot from five feet out in the final second, but the ball bounced off the rim and time ran out in the scamble for the rebound.
Loewen finished with 19 points to lead Hillsboro, which falls to 5-4 for the season.
