Garden City girls win third straight; boys drop to 0-6

After starting the season 0-3, the Garden City Lady Buffaloes won their third straight game, beating Holcomb 48 – 42 Saturday night in the Clarion Inn Roundball Classic.

Garden City scored off the opening tip on a quick feed to Abbie Dart and the Lady Buffs led 2 – 0 less than 10 seconds into the game. But Holcomb would outscore Garden City 12 – 3 over the next six minutes to build a 7-point lead. The Lady Buffaloes responded by closing the gap to 12 – 10 after one quarter and scoring the first 6 points of the 2nd quarter to lead 16 – 12. The Lady Longhorns pulled within one several times, but Garden City scored the last five points of the half to take a 26 – 20 lead into the break.

Garden City led by 7 at the end of three and built the lead to 9 in the 4th quarter, 43 – 34. The Lady Longhorns trimmed to the lead to 5 multiple times, but could neve get any closer, as the Lady Buffaloes held on.

Garden City’s Kyra Bellows led all scorers with 13 points, followed by Abbie Dart with 8. Eboni Sapien led Holcomb with 10 points, before fouling out. Madison Ruda and Zoe Engler each added 7 points. Neither team shot particularly well from the charity stripe, with the Lady Buffaloes hitting 11 out of 20 free throws and the Lady Longhorns 10 out of 18. Garden City won the turnover battle with 12 to Holcomb’s 17, but got outrebounded 28-15.

The Lady Longhorns fall to 0-4 and will return to action Friday night at Ulysses. The Lady Buffaloes are now 3-3 heading into the winter break and will resume play against Hugoton on January 3.

 Boys

The Garden City Buffaloes open the basketball season 0-6, falling to Holcomb in the finale of the Clarion Inn Roundball Classic, 44 – 36 Saturday night.

Offensive woes again plagued Garden City, as the Buffaloes scored just 10 points in the 1st half and didn’t get a singe field goal in the 2nd quarter. In fact, Garden City went from the 2:15 mark of the 1st quarter to the 5:15 mark of the third quarter with just two 2nd quarter free throws from Carlos Acosta. Over that span Holcomb stretched a 5-point lead into a 21-point lead at 31-10 in the 3rd quarter. But the Buffaloes would outscore the Longhorns 11 – 4 the rest of the period, with Garret Doll producing his own 7 – 0 run to trim the lead to 14, 35 – 21 after three quarters. Garden City kept clawing back in the final quarter, cutting the lead to 7, 39 – 32, after Doll made another basket. But Brandon Stegman hit a trey to push the margin back to 10 and Holcomb held on for the win.

Garden City’s Garret Doll led all scorers with 18 points, all of which came in the 2nd half, while Conner Van Cleave led Holcomb with 17. No one else scored in double figures for either team.

The Longhorns are now 3-1 and will travel to Ulysses Friday night. The Buffaloes are 0-6 and will have to wait until January 3 to try to get that first win of the year when the Hugoton Eagles come to town.