Hillsboro teams take third at Cheney

They got there by different routes, but the Hillsboro girls? and boys? basketball teams nailed down third-place finishes with victories on Saturday at the Cheney Cardinal Classic.

The girls fought tooth and nail to win a low-scoring 29-26 contest against Winfield. Hillsboro trailed after the first quarter, 8-5, and then 14-11 at halftime. After three quarter the score was 18-17, with Hillsboro inching to within one point.

Hillsboro took its first lead since early in the game when Kassidi Luthi scored in the paint 34 seconds into the final period. She added a free throw on Hillsboro?s next trip up the court for a 20-18 lead. But Winfield drained two 3-pointers in less than 1:30 to go back up by four points.

Hillsboro didn?t lead again until Candace Weinbrenner hit a 17-footer with 51.5 seconds left in the game to put HHS ahead 27-26. Tiffany Rooker added a free throw 17 seconds later, and then one more with 3.4 seconds left to seal the victory.

Dakota Kaufman led the team with 12 points.

In the boys? contest, the Trojans got double-figure scoring from three players on the way to a relatively easy 69-49 win over Clearwater.

Clay Shewey started the game with a 3-pointer and David Loewen added a put-back 30 seconds later for a 5-0 lead.

Clearwater came back with an 8-0 run, but Hillsboro responded with a 15-4 burst over the final 3:42 to post a 20-12 lead after one quarter.

Hillsboro pushed the margin to 38-25 by halftime despite making only two of six free throws, including two misses on the front end of a one-and-one.

Clearwater scored the first four points of the second half to cut the lead to nine points, but by the end of the quarter, the Trojans were sitting comfortably atop a 56-39 spread. Six different Trojans contributed baskets during the surge.

Hillsboro finished the game with an 8-3 advantage to settle the final margin at 20 points.

Loewen led Hillsboro with 17 points, Daniel Jost added 11 and Shewey finished with 11.

With a 2-1 showing at the tournament, both Hillsboro teams are 2-2 for the season.

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