Basketball season continues at least until Thursday for the Skyline Middle School teams, which won their first-round games in the Heart of the Plains League tournament Saturday at Skyline.
The Lady T-birds, 41-13 winners over eighth-seeded Attica, will face Pretty Prairie tonight at 8 p.m.
Skyline’s boys, who edged Pretty Prairie 26-24 on Saturday, will face top-seeded South Barber in tonight’s 6:40 p.m. game.
Skyline girls 41, Attica 13
The Lady T-birds got off to a slow start, but led 9-3 after Janessa Davis scored with 1:33 left in the first quarter.
Skyline led 11-7 after one quarter, but hit their first five shots of the second quarter while opening up a 21-9 halftime lead.
The Lady T-birds got five steals in the second quarter while forcing seven Attica turnovers.
In the third quarter, the Lady T-birds went on a 7-0 run to grab a 30-11 lead after Kadi Richardson hit a free throw with 1:25 on the clock.
Back-to-back buckets by Kaitlyn Stark and Richardson to end the quarter made it 34-13 Skyline.
The Lady T-birds didn’t give up a point in the fourth quarter as they pulled away for the easy win and a spot in the semifinals.
Davis led all scorers with 17 points, plus blocked two shots and controlled six rebounds.
Stark added 12 points, nine rebounds and two steals.
Richardson finished with seven points while Tiffany Timm swiped four steals. Alyssa Swonger handed out two assists while Taylor DeWeese had a steal and a block.
Skyline made 13 of 24 shots in the final three quarters, making the slow start easy to forget.
SMS will face Pretty Prairie, which beat Burrton 24-22, in tonight’s semifinal at 8 p.m. South Barber and Fairfield will meet in the other semifinal at 5:20 p.m. tonight.
Skyline girls 41, Attica 13
AMS: Carley Hill 3 0-0 6, Chelsea Casper 0 2-2 2, Tristan Gerdes 1 0-1 2, McKynzie Wyatt 1 0-2 2, Morgan Grigsby 0 1-8 1, Chelsea Bohrer 0 0-0 0, Darrian Pinkston 0 0-0 0, Brooke Ricke 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 5 3-13 13.
SMS: Janessa Davis 8 1-2 17, Kaitlyn Stark 6 0-2 12, Kadi Richardson 3 1-2 7, Veronica Nelson 0 2-5 2, Tiffany Timm 1 0-0 2, Alyssa Swonger 0 1-2 1, Shelby Bender 0 0-0 0, Taylor DeWeese 0 0-0 0, Brooke Fisher 0 0-0 0, Abby Giles 0 0-0 0, Mycha Owens 0 0-0 0, Taylor Tobin 0 0-0 0, Lauren Zerr 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 18 5-13 41.
A 7 2 4 0 — 13
S 11 10 13 7 — 41
Skyline boys 26, Pretty Prairie 24
The T-birds had a 13-8 halftime lead, but Pretty Prairie stormed back to tie the game at 17 heading into the fourth quarter as the four-five matchup was as close as could be expected.
The Bullpups outscored Skyline 9-4 in the third quarter to tie the game on a free throw by Greg Schlickau with 1:21 left.
But the T-birds started the fourth quarter with a bucket by Brandon Abbott, and a three-pointer by Blake Lee to open up a 22-17 lead with 4:01 left.
Pretty Prairie cut it to one when Jon Strohl hit a three with 54.9 seconds left, but Skyline’s Ross Westhoff hit the front end of a one-and-one with 29.8 seconds left to make it a 26-24 lead.
At the other end, Lee blocked a shot and Chris Santana got the rebound to preserve the win for Skyline.
Lee finished with a game-high eight points while Abbott had six to go with two blocks and Santana added six points, seven rebounds and two blocks.
Westhoff swiped three steals and handed out four assists while Cole Patterson dished a pair of assists to go with six rebounds.
Skyline will face top-seeded South Barber tonight at 6:20 p.m. The T-birds are looking to avenge a 33-30 loss to the Tornadoes last week.
Fairfield will face Central Christian in tonight’s 4 p.m. semifinal.
The HOPL tournament will conclude Thursday with third-place and championship games at Skyline.
Skyline boys 26, Pretty Prairie 24
PPMS: Paul Crum 2 3-4 7, Jon Strohl 1 (1) 1-2 6, Greg Schlickau 2 1-2 5, Zane Arnold 2 0-0 4, Jared Graber 1 0-0 2, Nick Helfrich 0 0-0 0, Austin Kisner 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 8 (1) 5-8 24.
SMS: Blake Lee 1 (2) 0-2 8, Brandon Abbott 3 0-1 6, Chris Santana 3 0-2 6, Ross Westhoff (1) 1-2 4, Cole Patterson 1 0-0 2, Brad Dearinger 0 0-2 0, Colin Little 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 8 (3) 1-9 26.
PP 5 3 9 7 — 24
S 8 5 4 9 — 26
