Senior Night Sweep! Scott City boys, girls defeat Goodland

Scott City, Kan. (westernkansasnews.com)–Senior night on Tuesday will be a good memory for the Scott City boys and girls basketball teams for a while. After the Lady Beavers were blasted by 33 points against the Cowgirls and the Beavers boys were stuned by the Cowboys just two weeks ago, Scott City returned the favor on both ends. The Lady Beavers won a 45-44 thriller, while the boys rallied from a nine-point first half deficit to win 58-43. 

In the first game of the night, Goodland scored the first two baskets of the game, and it looked as though it would be the same story as the previous meeting. Playing without two starters, Scott City used a 9-0 run to lead 12-8 late in the first quarter, but the Cowgirls would score five straight to lead 13-12 after the first quarter. That run would continue to grow to nine straight, but the Lady Beavers were able to keep the game within reach, trailing 19-16 at the break. Goodland opened the third quarter on a 5-2 run to take their biggest lead of 24-18 with 5:56 left in the third quarter. When it looked like the Cowgirls were going to pile it on, Scott City responded and did so in a big way. A 12-2 run to close out the final 4:46 of the third quarter gave the Lady Beavers a 30-26 lead. They would lead most of the way, until Goodland retook the lead wiht 1:49 left at 40-39. The teams would trade 4-0 runs. A Scott City (3-17, 1-9 GWAC) foul with 10.4 seconds remaining put the Cowgirls at the foul line. Maddie Mayer drained both free throws to give them the lead at 44-43. Trailing by a point and without a timeout, the Beavers responded with Bailey Nickel driving down the lane, and getting fouled with 5.4 seconds left. The senior on Senior Night calmly drained the foul shots to give Scott City the 45-44 lead. Out of the timeout, the Cowgirls drove it to half court, and threw the ball out of bounds with a second left. The Lady Beaver threw it into play to a Cowgirl at mid court, who didn’t have a chance to get a good shot off, and Scott City snapped a 10-game losing streak overall, and ended a 12-game GWAC slide, dating back to February 5, 2013, when they defeated Goodland. Leading the charge for Scott City was Bailey Nickel, who poured in a game-high 25 points, 19 coming in the second half. Goodland (12-8, 4-6) got 15 from Maddie Mayer and 11 from Kate-Lynn King.

The nightcap saw Goodland start out shooting well, leading 9-5 after one period and leading by as many as nine at 18-9 with 5:40 left before halftime. That’s when the Scott City offense woke up and got back into the game. The Beavers scored eight straight to pull to within 18-17 with 2:59 left in the second quarter, only to see the Cowboys respond with four straight. Once again, Scott City pulled to with a point, before the Goodland’s Taylen Smith hit a shot as the first half horn sounded to give them a 24-21 lead. After the Cowboys took a 27-23 lead with a little over 50 seconds gone in the third frame, Scott City took the lead for good, using a 13-0 run to lead 36-27 with 2:22 left in the period. It ended up being a 5:14 drought for Goodland (8-12, 5-5), as the Beavers ended up outscoring theim 23-7 in the quarter to take a 44-31 lead into the fourth period. In the final frame, the closest the Cowboys could get was at 48-40 with 3:54 left, as Scott City hit six straight free throws down the stretch to close out the game and win by 15, their biggest lead of the game. Three Beavers (17-3, 8-2) finished in double figures, led by Brett Meyer’s 19 points, Trey O’Neil’s 17 and Brayden Strine ended up with 14 points. Goodland got 13 from Taylen Smith, all in the first half, and 11 from Gage Ihrig.

The regular season has wrapped up for both teams. Pairings will officially be released on Wednessday for the Class 4A, Division II Sub-State in Goodland to be held March 6-8. March 6 will feature the girls, as it projects to see the matchups of Scott City vs Hugoton and Colby vs Goodland. The Boys semi-finals will be the following night with projected matchups being Scott City vs Colby and Goodland vs Hugoton, with the Sub-State finals for the girls and boys to be played March 8.