March 29, 2024

Holcomb Grabs First Place By the Horns

Hugoton, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The battle for first place in the Great Western Activities Conference came to Hugoton Tuesday night.  

With a win the Eagles would have created a real logjam of three teams Hugoton, Holcomb and Scott City for first place.  As it stands today Holcomb has allowed a little spacing between them and the two teams chasing them beating Hugoton 67-56.  

The top ranked Longhorns (15-0, 5-0 GWAC) have a one game lead over Scott City and two over Hugoton (10-4, 3-2 GWAC) For the Eagles its the first time they have lost back to back games all season.

Boys Highlights

Hugoton trailed by as much as 10 and brought down the lead to two 52-50 with a chance to take the lead at the six minute mark, but missed on two opportunities to break on top and went on 15-6 run through the rest of the game to finish with a 11 point win.  

After the game, Head Coach Craig Szymczak was disappointed his team lost the battle of the boards.

Connor Van Cleave led Holcomb with 19 points. Parker Titus and Kellen Watkins each had 14.  It does not get any easier for Hugoton as they travel to Scott City Friday night.  

Girls Highlights

In the girls game, Hugoton’s press gave Holcomb all kinds of problems and the Lady Eagles opened up at least a two game lead on everyone else in the conference with a 78-39 win.  Hugoton won their fifth in a row and improved to 12-2, 5-0 in the GWAC.

Head Coach Andy Gillen liked the way his team took Holcomb out of their comfort zone.

Katy Hager led the Eagles with 21 points, Amy Scott chipped in with 18.  Taylor Deniston led Holcomb (7-7, 2-3 GWAC) with 15.