On the road for a match up with the Thunderhawks of Montevideo, the West Central Area Knights boys basketball team found themselves on the right side of a thrilling 57-56 victory, on Jan. 12.
The Thunderhawks got off to a hot start taking a 12-4 lead. They led the entire game building it up to ten points at 45-35 with four and a half minutes left. WCA ended the game on a 22-11 run over those last four and a half minutes including Jacob Strunk’s three-pointer with six seconds left to give the Knights first lead at 57-56. The Knights used a foul they had to give with 1.7 seconds left and then the Thunderhawks last second shot from 25 feet missed and the Knights hung on to win.
Knights coach Kraig Hunter said, “This was one of those nights where nothing went right for most of the game. Montevideo shot well, when they missed, we gave up too many offensive rebounds. On our end we missed too many shots in the lane. We got into a lot of foul trouble with multiple players.”
WCA pulled within one at 53-52 before a three pointer by Montevideo gave them a four point lead with under a minute left. A bucket by Strunk pulled the Knights to within two and set the stage for the game winning shot.
Hunter added, “With the combination of our foul trouble and the size of a couple of their big kids, we would not have won this game without our post players Damon Sanstead and Ben Bye. They combined to score 9 of their 11 points in the second half and got us some key rebounds. Sam Hanson also played some crucial minutes and made big plays off the bench.”
The Knights made 21-57 shots for 37% and 5-20 threes for 25%. They hit 10-16 free throws. The Thunderhawks made 22-57 shots for 38% and 4-14 threes for 29%. They made 8-14 free throws. Montevideo dominated the rebounding 43-34. In the turnover department however, the Knights only had eight turnovers including only one in the second half. The Thunderhawks had 16 turnovers.
Leading in scoring for the Knights were Strunk 14, Bryce Kjesbo 12 and Cole Anderson with nine.
Anderson had a good rebounding effort with 11 rebounds, Kjesbo had 8 and Bye 5.
Top three scorers for Montevideo were Devin Ashling 16, Cooper Dack 10 and Carson Boike nine.
The Knights, 8-2, have three road games next week at Brandon-Evansville on Monday and at Sauk Centre and BOLD on Thursday and Friday.
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