January 10th
Lady ’Stangs Make Easy Work Of Augusta On Saturday Night
Kylie Smith Joins the 1,000 Point Club
Lady 'Stangs 63 | Augusta 20
10th Region "A" Quarterfinals
Saturday, January 10th
The Lady ’Stangs improve to a 15–1 record after defeating the Augusta Lady Panthers by 43 points on Saturday in this year’s 10th Region All “A” Classic Quarterfinals. Our girls will face Bracken County on Tuesday, January 13. The Lady Polar Bears defeated Robertson County Friday night by a score of 66-28.
Sophomore Kylie Smith officially joined the St. Mary/BBHS 1,000 point club. More details in the post game report.
Mustangs Advance, Beating Augusta On Saturday Night
Beckett Kuntz and Brady Boruske Join the 500 Point Club
Mustangs 66 | Augusta 46
10th Region "A" Quarterfinals
Saturday, January 10th
KYLIE SMITH INTERVIEW AT 1:18:10
Senior Beckett Kuntz and Junior Brady Boruske officially joined the St. Mary/BBHS 500 point club. More details in the post game report below.
Lady ‘Stangs roll to a running clock 63-20 win over Augusta, in a game that saw Sophomore Kylie Smith score her 1.000th Point. I interviewed her at halftime of the Boys Game, which can be heard at the 1:18:10 mark in the Boys Game broadcast.
Our boys found young Augusta (No Seniors, 1 Junior) to be a feisty, aggressive ball team that saw us leading merely 19-18 early in the second quarter, prior to a Brossart 17-2 run to finish out the half, and pretty much decide the game.
In this contest that saw a myriad of fouls called and a total of 60 free throws shot between the two teams (BB 20/38 and AG 13/22), both Beckett Kuntz and Brady Boruske achieve joining the 500 Points Club.
Boruske and Sophomore Brady Rowe shared scoring honors with 12 points each, with veterans Carson Hesse scoring 9 and Beckett Kuntz and Nick Cozzi putting up 8 each. In addition to Rowe, we received huge minutes from sophs Cohen Trauth (2), Wyatt Feldman (7), and Derek Bezold (2), as the Mustangs prevailed 66-46, and improved to 6-8 on the season.
Both teams advance to Tuesday night semis where we will do battle (which seems to be the norm lately), with the homestanding, host, Bracken County Polar Bears and Lady Bears. The Lady ‘Stangs tip off at 6pm, followed by the Mustangs (about 7:30pm) and both games will be broadcast live starting 20 minutes prior to tip-off.
January 9th
The Mustangs final prep for the 10th Region All “A” Classic Tournament did not go as hoped for, falling behind early and being overwhelmed with a 23-0 first half run that sealed our doom. While twelve Birds put ink in the scorebook, led by Tayden Lorenzen’s 16 points, nothing came easy for our Mustangs who struggled to get off, and finish on high percentage shots. No Mustang scored double-figures. Beckett Kuntz came closest with 9, moving him to within one point of 500 career points. Sophomore Cohen Trauth and Junior Drew Steffen added 8 apiece. While fresh our JV team played even up with the Birds JVs for the best part of three quarters before running our of gas late, falling 67-47. The Birds were once again much the best in the Freshman contest.
We will now focus our attention on playing at the top of our game versus our upcoming opponents in the 10th Region All “A” Tournament, the first of which will be the Augusta Panthers, Saturday at 6pm at Bracken County High School.
January 6th
Mustangs and Pendleton County Physically Battle To A 38-32 Mustangs "Win" Which Speaks Volumes For The Quality of this "Game"
In a brutally rough, aggressive match with the Pendleton County Wildcats, 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 freshman 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.
January 3rd, Crosstown Classic
Mustangs Put It All Together, Hit Eleven 3-Pointers, See Four Players Score Double-Figures, Snap Eight Game Losing Streak To Camels With 71-58 Crosstown Classic Victory
Coach Ben Franzen’s vision of having the Mustangs be an up-tempo, run and shoot-the-three style team, came to fruition Saturday night at the Campbell County Middle School as four different Mustangs recorded double figures and we dropped eleven 3-Pointers on the Camels, who led only once in this contest, 3-2 in the opening minutes of play. “Drooo” Steffen, known for his ability to string 3’s, nailed six of them, and led the Mustangs with 20 points. Carson Hesse not only scored 15 points, including a three-pointer, but also stood in and took a pair of charges. Brady Boruske contributed a pair of 3’s among his 14 point production, and Nick Cozzi put his team on his shoulders down the stretch, hitting 4 of 4 free-throws and two 2-pointers in the crucial fourth quarter. Cozzi totaled 10 points on the night and was named the Brossart Player of the Game.
The Mustangs were hot out of the gate as Brady Bourke scored 9 points in the opening period, Drew Steffen 5, Carson Hesse 7, and Nick Cozzi 2. We led 23-16 at the quarter stop, and were only outscored 15-14 as we took a 37-31 lead to the locker room at halftime. The big challenge for those of us who have followed this team throughout this season have seen us squander leads in the second half, was to see if we could sustain our momentum through the first three minutes of the third quarter, and make a serious run down the stretch. The question was answered when we added 19 third quarter points to our sum total, besting the Camels 19-18, spotting us a 7 points advantage with 8 minutes to play in the game. A major 3-pointer by Beckett Kuntz turned back a Campbell County mini-run, and when Nick Cozzi hit all of his free-throws down the stretch while collecting a pair of 2-pointers, this one went in the win column, 71-58, amazing the many scribes on hand to cover the so-called “featured” girls game, sending them scrambling to write about this “Spoiler’s Alert” upset win by our now 4-7 Mustangs over the now 9-3 Camels. The Mustangs received major contributions off of the bench by Senior Jackson Steffen and Sophomore Brady Rowe.
On the Camels side of the ledger, they were led by their go-to guy, Austin Davie, who put up 25 points to earn Campbell County POG honors. Cade Anthrop added 12 and Braden Elam 10.
Unfortunately, it appears that Brossart Senior Jackson Steffen has reaggravated his injured right knee and will be lost to us for the remainder of the season. Jackson came into this season knowing that the knee would require surgery at the conclusion of the season, but elected to wear a brace, and roll the dice, hoping that it would hold up. For the first 10 and 1/2 games he was getting by with it, until it gave out on him during the Campbell County game Saturday night. He had previously missed his entire Freshman season with a knee injury.
The Mustangs will be back in action Tuesday night when Pendleton County comes to call for a tripleheader, with the Freshman game tipping off at 5pm, the JVs doing battle at 6pm and the Varsity attempting to post back-to-back wins at 7:30pm.
Lady 'Stangs Handed First Season Loss 56-46 in the Nitecap. Lady Camels' Isabella Jayasuriya Leads All Scorers With 19, L 'Stang Kylie Smith Counters With 14
In the nitecap, where the 5-2 Lady Camels, who were coming off of a win over Holy Cross were taking on our 13-0 Lady ‘Stangs fresh off of winning the Lady Of the South tournament in Bowling Green. In this one it was the Lady Camels who shot straight to the lead, opening up a quick 12-0 early game lead. Following aa Aaron Stamm time-out, our girls responded with a 7-0 run to close out the first period, and trailed 12-7 after 8 minutes of Crosstown Classic Varsity basketball.
The second stanza was more of the same, as Brossart struggled to get off high-percentage shots, while the Lady Camels continued to successfully employ a 3-point shot assault, which resulted in five of them being hit in the first half, providing the Lady Camels with a tidy 25-17 halftime advantage.
Certainly we would right the ship and overtake the Lady Camels in the second half, but certainly we were unable to do so. as Campbell County widened the margin, outscoring our girls 18-11 in the third stanza, leaving us with a 43-28 deficit, and only 8 minutes remaining to overcome it. While we would creep to within six at 45-39 and 48-42, it seemed that whenever the Lady Camels needed a basket, they got one, as Isabella Jayasuriya hit 9 of 9 fourth quarter free-throws to hold us at bay, and post the 56-46 victory, and lay a loss on the Lady ‘Stangs slate. Jayasuriya led all scorers with 19, while Kylie Smith and Hadley Eviston countered with 14 and 13. The Lady ‘Stangs will welcome the Highlands Lady Birds to the SyDome on Wednesday. We will broadcast that game live starting at 7:10pm.