Competing for Hillsboro were Corissa Bartel, Ben Bosworth, Cody Blackketter and Matthew Brown.
To get to the championship pool, Hillsboro had to survive preliminary pool play. They did with a 6-1 record. The Trojans defeated Sedgwick 50-10, Mission Valley 60-50 on a tie-breaker, Riley County 40-20, Northern Heights 45-10 and Remington before losing to Hutch Trinity 50-40 on a tie breaker.
Once in the championship pool, Hillsboro lost again to Hutch Trinity 60-25, then to Council Grove 40-30 before defeating Remington 80-30 and Rock Creek 55-40 and falling to Wichita Collegiate 65-20 for a 2-3 record in the pool.
?You can?t get any closer to qualifying for state and not make it than our team did,? said coach Stuart Holmes. ?In the end, if we had answered correctly just one question that Council Grove got, our kids would have won that match and placed third.
?Our team was the only one all day to defeat Rock Creek, who ended up placing first,? he added. ?So the kids had an outstanding day to finish an excellent season, but just came up a little short of our goal of getting back to state.?
Holmes said his seniors, Bartel, Bosworth and Brown, will be missed next year.
?They?ve made a significant contribution to the team over the years,? he said. ?They?ve been great.?
MCAA tournament?Hills?boro placed second at the MCAA league tournament Jan. 26 at Wichita Collegiate.
In pool play, Hillsboro defeated Ellinwood 40-20, then lost to Smoky Valley 90-20 and Sterling 35-20 before beating Nickerson 70-20 and Wichita Collegiate 60-35.
Tying with Collegiate for second place in the pool with a 3-2 record, Hillsboro?s head-to-head win over the Spartans was the tie-breaker that moved the Trojans on to the semifinals.
In that matchup, Hillsboro defeated Marion 60-20 before losing in the championship match to Hesston, 60-10.
Competing for Hillsboro were Corissa Bartel, Cody Black?ketter, Ben Bosworth and Mathew Brown.
?All the individuals on the team contributed and had good days,? coach Stuart Holmes said. ?The kids should feel good about earning a second-place medal in our league.
?This group knows an incredible amount of information on a wide variety of topics, so it was neat to see them maintain the tradition of placing in the top four our of our 12 league schools like our students have done for at least the last four years in a row.?
