It was a rough night all around for the Skyline Middle School boys basketball team, which lost to South Barber 64-37 in a Heart of the Plains League tournament semifinal last night at Skyline.
Adding to their woes was the concussion suffered by starting guard Cole Patterson midway through the second quarter. Patterson attempted to take a charge and landed hard on the court. He is not expected to play in Thursday’s third-place game against Central Christian.
At the time of the injury, the T-birds trailed 28-9 and the South Barber lead was 39-13 at halftime thanks to a very slow start offensively for Skyline. The T-birds didn’t get on the board until Chris Santana made a basket with 1:10 left in the first quarter.
That scoring slump did not extend to the second half, as Skyline came out firing on all cylinders to start the third quarter.
Santana hit Brandon Abbott for a basket inside on the first possession of the third, and after Logan Hitchcock scored at the other end, Skyline went on a 12-0 run.
Abbott’s putback that he converted into a three-point play with 4:42 on the clock got things started.
With 4:22 left, Abbott scored again, this time off an assist from Blake Lee.
South Barber missed a pair of free throws at the other end, and with 3:51 remaining, Brad Dearinger drove in for a bucket, cutting the Tornado lead to 41-22.
South Barber didn’t even get the ball across midcourt before Abbott picked off a pass. That steal led to a driving basket by Dearinger, who added the free throw to make it 41-25 with 3:40 left.
At the other end, Dearinger came up with a steal and fed it ahead to Abbott. He was fouled on a shot, but cashed in on both free throws to get his team within 14 points at the 3:11 mark.
South Barber snapped out of their funk with a putback by Peyton Reeves, but Blake Lee answered with a three at the other end.
The Tornadoes had an answer again, finishing the third quarter on a 5-0 run to lead 48-30 heading into the final six minutes.
South Barber stretched the lead to 55-30 before Lee hit another three with 4:40 on the clock.
Skyline wasn’t able to rally this time, as the Tornadoes punched their ticket to the championship game.
Abbott controlled the paint in the second half as he scored 13 of his team-high 19 points after halftime. He also grabbed four offensive rebounds in the second half and finished with eight total boards on the night.
Lee tossed in six points to go with five rebounds while Dearinger finished with five points, two steals and an assist.
Santana chipped in five points and Colin Litttle had two assists to go with three point and Daniel Hacker had three rebounds.
South Barber shot the ball well all night, including an eight-for-14 effort in the second half. The Tornadoes also took advantage of numerous Skyline turnovers and they had the edge on the boards.
South Barber, the top seed in the tournament, will face second-seeded Fairfield at 8 p.m. Thursday at Skyline.
The T-birds will take on Central Christian, the third seed, at 5:20 p.m. Thursday in the third place game.
South Barber 64, Skyline 37
SMS: Brandon Abbott 7 5-7 19, Blake Lee (2) 0-0 6, Brad Dearinger 2 1-1 5, Chris Santana 1 2-4 4, Colin Little (1) 0-0 3, Gunner DeClue 0 0-0 0, Cody Fanning 0 0-0 0, Austin Gilpin 0 0-0 0, Daniel Hacker 0 0-4 0, Cole Patterson 0 0-0 0, Chanler Simar 0 0-0 0, Dustin Weber 0 0-0 0, Ross Westhoff 0 0-1 0. TOTALS 10 (3) 8-17 37.
SBMS: Logan Hitchcock 7 (1) 8-10 25, Peyton Reeves 4 3-9 11, Dylan Allison 1 (2) 1-3 9, Kale Girty 3 2-2 8, Peyton Yandel 1 (1) 1-4 6, Bryce Roberts (1) 0-0 3, Daniel Anderson 0 0-0 0, Travis Hoch 0 0-0 0, Daniel Jones 0 0-0 0, Jeffrey Schultz 0 0-0 0, Landon Vogel 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 16 (5) 15-28 64.
S 4 9 17 7 — 37
SB 16 21 9 16 — 64
