There were a lot of losers associated with the Brossart-Pendleton County Varsity encounter that took place in the Thomas H. Seither Sportscenter Tuesday night.  Primarily were the two teams who expected to play basketball but resulted in a combination of kick-boxing, a Rock Fight, and hand-to-hand Mortal Combat.  Second were the coaches who devote hours installing schemes which result in high-percentage shots.  Thirdly the beleaguered broadcasters who were forced to paint the bloody picture, and lastly the fans who wasted their time for two hours and could have been doing something more productive, after having paid $6 each to witness it.  Refunds should have been issued.  The only benefactors of this debacle were the three  “professionals” who were paid to control and administrate it, but failed to do so.  There are three things that I enjoy in life that I wouldn’t do under certain circumstances – fishing for Northern Pike in Scotland, being a horse racing fan in Ireland, or being a basketball fan, where games such as that which  played out last night were the norm.  While the Mustangs prevailed on the scoreboard 38-32, this “win” has an empty feel to due to the nature of the  circumstances under which it was played.   This is not to disparage either team – both were equally victimized.  As I like to say, “If Dr. Naismith had witnessed this contest, he would not have invented the game.”

Looking strictly at the box score and stats, Pendleton County led 10-9 after a quarter that saw Dawson Nichols score 10 of his game-high 15 points.  Brossart prevailed 10-6 in the second round, taking a 28-26 advantage to the locker room at halftime.  An exciting 7-6  Mustangs edge in the third quarter increased our advantage to 26-22, and after seeing the Wildcats tie the contest at 26s,  we made our way to the free-throw line where Carson Hesse hit 3 of 4 following a Nick Cozzi field goal, allowing the Mustangs to survive 38-32 and improve to 5-7 on the season.  We were led by Brady Boruske with 11 points, closing the gap between himself and the 500 Points club to 5.  Beckett Kuntz ad Drew Steffen contributed 8 points.  Carson Hesse took FOUR changes.  We will travel to The City of Beautiful Homes Thursday night for an encounter with the Highlands Bluebirds who sustained their first loss of the season in  their last outing at Ryle. 

Our Mustangs prevailed in both the Freshman and JV games with Atticus Prost hitting a three-pointer at the buzzer lifting his team to a  44-41 victory.  Prost led all scorers with 14, and Parker Litmer added 11 in the win.  Our JVs won 55-30 with Sophomore Wyatt Feldman pacing nine Mustang scorers with 11 points.