Longhorns unbeaten at break

The Kimball High boys are perfect and undefeated at the Holiday break with a record of 6-0 after wins over Hershey and Bayard. Fifty-nine seemed to be the feature number in the final weekend before the state mandated sports moratorium as they won over Hershey in a Friday night home game 59-36 and then handled Bayard at Bayard 59-31. Coach Bruce Tjosvold was happy with the wins and satisfied with the play of his young men but said "We need to get better as we have some tough games coming up right after the break".

A solid night for Kimball's two top seniors in the Hershey game with Mike Daum scoring 25 points to go with his 9 rebounds, 2 blocks, 3 steals, and an assist, and Jake Reader had 16 points with 10 rebounds for a double-double along with 6 steals, 5 assists, and a blocked shot. Michael Ferguson contributed 6 points on 3/4 shooting plus 5 rebounds, 2 assists and a block. Colton Stull and Johnathon Kurth had 4 points each, Jonathon Withrow 2 points plus 6 steals and 3 assists, and Henry Heeg 2 points along with 4 assists.

The Horns took control early as Daum hit a trey off a pass from Reader following the opening tip, and then hit another trey on a feed from Stull and Kimball went out to an 11-0 lead before the visiting club got on the score board. It was 20-6 at the quarter, but Hershey out scored the hosts 15-9 in the second quarter to close to 29-21 at the half. Kimball took complete control in the second half to coast to the win.

In the final team stats, Kimball was 6/12 from the line, 19/45 on 2 point fielders, 5/16 on three pointers, had 28 rebounds, 17 steals, 18 assists, and 4 blocked shots. Hershey was 6/9 at the line, 12/38 on 2 point field goals and 2/9 on 3 pointers, and out rebounded Kimball with 33 boards. Kimball held their turnovers to just 7 and their fouls to only 7, both stats that coach Tjosvold was happy with. Hershey had only 12 fouls in a low whistle count game. High scorer for the Panthers was Landan Maassen with 22 points. With the loss, Hershey dropped to 1-5 on the season.

At Bayard the Horns opened with Jake Reader making two strong moves to the basket for scores, but the Tigers stayed right with Kimball in the opening period and trailed 15-12 at the quarter break. Kimball extended the lead to 29-19 by half time with good play off the bench from Jon Withrow and Ethan Land. Kimball seems to come out strong in the second half of their games to date and the win at Bayard was no different as they out scored the Tigers 14-2 in the third period and coasted home.

A few more turnovers than usual for the Horns with 16 total.

They were whistled for 11 fouls, shot 9/16 at the foul line, were 25/62 from the field going 0/10 on three point attempts, had 36 rebounds, 16 steals, 11 assists, and 6 blocked shots. The defense really stepped up while the offense struggled.

Mike Daum was high once again with 18 points and also charted 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks, and 5 steals. Reader finished with 15 points on 7/12 shooting from the field and 1/1 at the line, had 6 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists. Withrow was 4/5 from the field for 8 points and had 3 steals. Ferguson with 6 points and did a great job on the boards with 11 rebounds. stull with a good all around performance with 4 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists. Heeg, Kurth, Land and Trent Rutledge all with 2 points.

Bayard pulled 25 rebounds, were 8/12 at the line, 11/60 from the field going 1/12 on three pointers. David Schuler was the only Tiger in double figures with 10 backed by Tyler Fiscus with 6, and CJ Trevino with 4.

A tough contest awaits the Horns coming off the break with a trip to Sidney on January 9 to face a good Class B Red Raider club. The following night on January 10 is another road trip to Pine Bluffs.