Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Trent Rutledge leads the Longhorns up the floor in Monday's Hall of Fame Game in Scottsbluff. They fell behind early and lost, 76-38.
Colton Stull, left, and Michael Ferguson put the defensive clamps on a Scottsbluff player during Monday's exhibition.
The Kimball High boys were simply out classed by a much larger and talented Scottsbluff team in the Nebraska School Hall of Fame pre-season game Monday evening at Scottsbluff High School and came up on the losing side of the final score of 76-38. In all reality, they may have been facing this year's eventual state Class B champions as the Bluffs squad is loaded with talent and have a couple of starters over 6'6" to take care of things inside.
That being said, there were some positive things for new head coach Luke Dea and his staff to mull over as they prepare for this weekend's Kimball Tournament. The Kimball kids kept their composure and never showed frustration when it had to be frustrating. They were out rebounded by the bigger team 41 to 15, but kept their turnovers to just 18 and their fouls to only 9. They had 10 players get in the scoring columns. Trent Rutledge led with 8 points hitting a pair of back to back treys in the first quarter. Jon Withrow had 5 with a trey, Michael Ferguson and Jaden Withrow 4 each, Jordan Greenwood 3, Angel Flores 3 with a trey, Colton Stull 3, Tyler Magninie 3 with a trey, Ethan Land 3 with a trey, and Enrique Cajero 2.
Not a lot of other team stats as Kimball was 4/7 at the line, 8/27 on 2 point fielders, 6/18 on 3 pointers, 4 offensive and 11 defensive boards, 6 steals and 3 assists. Scottsbluff was led by sophomore Dru Kuxhausen with 26 points including 6 treys and did this in like 2 quarters of playas coach Tony Siske was able to run lots of new players in and out.
The Horns are lacking in height this year and will have to make up for it by boxing out inside and shooting well outside. One thing for certain, they will not face another team of the caliber of Scottsbluff all season. It will be interesting to see how they respond this weekend against teams from schools of their own size. The Kimball boys play Friday night at 7:30 vs. Dundy County-Stratton.
Score by quarter
Scottsbluff 20 30 15 11 - 76
Kimball 12 10 7 9 - 38