Kimball Boys Lose to Pine Bluffs and Hemingford

The Kimball boys suffered a pair of losses this past week, losing on the road to a very powerful Pine Bluffs team 74-40, and coming up short on the home court Friday night, 72-61 to leave them 4-14 on the season.

No surprise in the loss at Pine Bluffs as the talented Hornet club has only 1 loss on the season while racking up a reported 16 wins! They have height, along with their overall talent, and have only 2 seniors on their roster. The host team jumped out to a 7-0 lead and had doubled the score at 22-11 by the end of the first quarter. At half-time, they led 44-20 and they coasted to the win, led by Haize Fornstrom, as the 6'3" senior put on a show, scoring 33 points. He can score from anywhere on the court, including hitting 3 treys, and going 4 for 4 at the foul line. He pleased the crowd with a slam dunk in the third quarter.

Andrew Fornstrom hit double figures with his 18 points and had 4 treys. Michael Shain, a sharp-shooting sophomore point guard had 11 points, Wyatt Fornstrom had 8 and Tucker Norman, a 6'4" junior, had 4. The winners had 9 treys total and were 7/9 at the foul line.

Sophomore Brendan Walker led Kimball with 15 points, including 1 trey, going 6/9 from the field and 2/2 at the line. Izaac Reuter, who finished with 10 points, scored 8 in the first period, hitting a pair of back-to-back treys. Zane Anthony had 5 points and shared top rebound honors with Corey Travis with 6. Colton Mielke and Kole Bush both hit 3 pointers and both had 3 points on the night. Brayden Tyan and Beau Hanks had 2 points each.

In team stats, Kimball shot 33% from the field, going 15 for 46, and were 5/18 on 3 point attempts, 4/8 at the foul line, had 26 rebounds, 3 steals, 9 assists, 17 turnovers and 11 fouls.

Pine Bluffs 22 22 20 10- - -74

Kimball 11 9 7 13- - -40

The Longhorns had a very good effort against a good Hemingford team. They fell behind early trailing 20-9 at the end of the opening period, but came back to outscore the visitors 19-10 in the second period and trailed 30-28 at half-time. Good play by Mielke, Reuter, Hanks and Travis in the third quarter gave the horns the scoring edge once again, as they tallied 21 points to 19 for the Bobcats leaving the score tied at 49-49 going into the fourth period, but Hemingford took control in the final 8 minutes, outscoring the Horns 23-12 for the win.

The winners had 7 players score, with freshman Brian Turek high with 19 points and sophomore Aaron Farritor 1 point back with 18, as both players hit 3 treys. Kenny Wyland, another freshman, had 13 points, Ezra Ray had 9, Miles David 5, Hunter Stevens 5 and Luke Callan 3. The Bobcats hit 9 treys, were 23/35 at the line and had 20 fouls.

Kimball had 10 players in the scoring columns, with Colton Mielke high with 15, including 3 treys and 4/4 foul shooting. Beau Hanks had 9, with 1 trey, Brendan Walker and Izaac Reuter had 7 points each and Reuter had a big night on the boards with 13 rebounds. Kole Bush had 5 with 1 trey, Zane Anthony 4, Brady Kilgore 4, Corey Travis 4, Brayden Tyan 4 and Sam Cajero 2.

In team stats, Kimball shot 34% from the field going 21/62, including 6/26 on 3 point attempts and were 13/17 for a good 76% at the line. They hit the boards hard, pulling 41 rebounds, including 16 offense and 25 defensive. They had 6 blocks on the night, 11 steals, 10 assists, but too many turnovers with 26 and too many fouls with 27. Once again, a good effort with hard play, but once again, failed to close it out in the final period.

The Kimball boys will close out the regular season tomorrow (Friday) night, hosting Mitchell for boy's only action. JV game time is set for 4 p.m., with the varsity game to follow at 5:30. They will move into sub-district tournament play at Gering on Tuesday (Feb. 20), where it appears they will play number 1 seed Bridgeport in the 5:30 game, but the exact pairings had not been released at the time of this writing.

Hemingford 20 10 19 23- - -72

Kimball 9 19 21 12- - -61