Buffaloes win ends historic streak; finish seventh at Valley Center
Valley Center, KS (westernkansasnews.com)-24 hours after making the wrong type of history, Garden City boys Coach Jacy Holloway was done talking about streaks.
Although, he’s hoping Saturday was the start of a positive one-even though he wouldn’t say the word streak.
Jared Koster scored 20 points, Scott Schmidt added a season-high 15, and the Buffaloes ended their first seven-game losing streak in 42 years with a 68-54 victory over Ulysses in the seventh place game of the 2016 January Jam.
“We know what this team is capable of,” Holloway said. “It was just about finishing, and we finally did that.”
Garden City (4-9, 0-3) was in command throughout, and only trailed for 27 seconds when Abraham Romero hit a 3-pointer from the corner to give the Tigers a 10-9 lead. Koster answered with two free throws to put the Buffaloes in front for good.
But for the second straight day, Schmidt was the answer. The senior scored eight of his 15 points in the third quarter, helping the Buffaloes build a 42-32 advantage.
“Scott is getting very comfortable with what we’re doing,” Holloway said. “He’s looked good the last two days.”
Schmidt scored the first nine points of the third in an eight-point loss to Valley Center on Friday.
“We have the guys to get it done, it’s just a matter of doing it,” Holloway explained. “Today, we did it.”
Schmidt scored his lone bucket of the final period with 6:21 to go. Koster, Griff Brunson and Garrett Doll took it from there.
Doll scored 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting while Davis added six and five boards. Brunson chipped in four.
“Now we need to build off of this,” Holloway said. “We need to do it again on Tuesday. But it all starts on the defensive end for us, and we were much better today.”
Ulysses (5-8, 2-4) shot 41 percent (22-of-54) from the floor, but was just 4-of-16 from beyond the arc. They also turned it over 17 times.
Bryan Garcia scored 10 points for Ulysses, who dropped their sixth straight game. Jace Paul added 10 and six rebounds.
Tip ins: It’s Garden City’s second straight seventh-place finish at the January Jam…It’s Ulysses second consecutive last-place finish…The Buffaloes shot a season-best 61 percent (25-of-41)
Next up: Garden City vs. Ulysses-Tuesday, January 26-6:45 p.m. pregame; 7 p.m. tip on 99.9 FM; westernkansasnews.com/kwkr; mobile app: KWKR and tuneinradio app: KWKR
