Garden City CC Men’s and Women’s Basketball earn a road sweep of Pratt
Photo Courtesy of Adam Shrimplin (Shrimplin Photography)
Pratt, KS (WesternKansasNews.com) – For the first time on the road in 2023 both Garden City Men’s and Women’s Basketball won on the same day. The women took down Pratt 76-52 and the men won 94-90 in an overtime battle with the Beavers on Saturday.
Women’s Basketball | Garden City 76 Pratt 52
Finally. That was the first word out of the mouth of Garden City head coach Antwain Scales after the blowout win for Garden City as the Lady Broncbusters led from start to finish against the Beavers.
The defense was the name of the game for the Busters as they held Pratt to just 52 and their top two leading scorers Princess Anderson (23.6 ppg) to just 15 points and Macy Hanzlick (11.7 ppg) to just 9 points. The Lady Beavers couldn’t get anything rolling against Garden City’s locked-in effort that only let the Beavers shoot 35% on 19-54 shooting.
Garden City, was led by Dayshawna Carter’s 22 points and Stevi Yancy’s five made threes for a total of 17 points. Keyana Turner also turned in a season-high 13 points to help Garden with their 3rd most points in a conference game this year.
“It feels good to finally put it together, we’ve been so close so many times and with that win able to break it out it feels really good on the road,” said Scales postgame.
Garden City now is the 12th seed in the region and if the season ended today would travel to Liberal to face Seward in the first round. The Broncbusters have three more games to try and improve their standing before the region tournament.
Men’s Basketball | #24 Garden City 94 Pratt 90
When Rusty Elmore woke on Saturday morning he knew the afternoon would provide a tough task. Knowing that his team would only have a rotation of 6 players and be going up against one of the hottest teams in the conference on the road.
“I had nightmares all night then you add in OT boy I didn’t sleep well last night but I knew our guys would be up to the task and this one today is special,” Elmore said after the win.
There were plenty of impact performances with all five of the Broncbusters who started the game finished scoring in double figures. Naivalurua knocked down a big three to help the Broncbusters force overtime after leading by as many as 18 throughout the contest and would finish with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Boston Harker was a step behind him with a new career-high 23 points.
The biggest story though was Garden City’s effort on the glass they outrebounded the Beavers 36-33 and 12-7 on the offensive glass. The second chances helped the winded Busters get every 2nd chance possible.
After consecutive Pratt misses in OT with 7 seconds left Logan Feltman hit 1 free throw to give Garden City the two-possession lead that they would need to finish off the Beavers.
With the win, Garden City picked up their 14th win of the conference season and stop in the top four of the Jayhawk Conference standings. That position would give them an auto-bye into the quarterfinal round and a home game in the quarterfinal at Conestoga Arena.
With 3 games left in the season Garden City will host Cloud a team, they beat in overtime on the road earlier in the year on Wednesday night. If you can’t make it to the game you can listen on 99.9 The Rock with coverage beginning at 5:45 PM and women’s basketball tipping off at 6 PM with the men to follow.
