The West Hancock Titans entered the tournament as the #1 seed and they flexed their muscles in the first round win a 63-26 win over the Bushnell-Prairie City Spartans. The Spartans led 2-0 after the first 16 seconds, and then the floodgates opened for the Titans. The Spartans bench outscored the Titans bench 22-16, but West Hancock dominated the rest of the quantitative stats: Points off turnovers (34-4), points in the paint (38-12), fast break points (17-6), and second chance points (13-4). Better days are certainly ahead for the Spartans, who played in their first tournament game since 2009. The Titans were just too much in this contest.
West Hancock was led in scoring by Cooper Knowles’s 16 points. Hunter Froman also scored double figures with 14. Jess Scott had a game-high seven rebounds. Knowles grabbed six rebounds and swatted five of the game’s eight total blocked shots. The Titans’ defense induced a fantastic 20 steals in this contest.
Bushnell-Prairie City’s Connor Upton led their scoring attack with eight points. Three Spartans finished with four points (Zander Jones, Ethan McKim, and Reece Reimolds). Jones and McKim tied the team-high with four rebounds each.
West Hancock (9-2) advances to the quarterfinals and will face the winner of the Eureka/Abingdon-Avon game. That will be played in Game 16, at 8:30pm on Friday night. Bushnell-Prairie City (3-9) will instead play the losing team in the Eureka/Abingdon-Avon game. That contest will be Game 12, played Friday afternoon at 1:30pm.
Box Score
West Hancock Info
Bushnell-Prairie City Info
Chris Derry
December 26, 2024