The Forestburg Longhorns took control of second place in district with a win at Saint Jo on Friday night.
The Longhorns 53-43 in a game that was a lot closer than it seemed like it was going to be at the start of the game.
Forestburg came into the game with a one game advantage on the Panthers in the district standings. The Longhorns won the first game between the teams 56-40, which was their first win against Saint Jo since 2018.
The Panthers were missing a starter in that first game and with the home crowd on their side, they were hoping the second game would be different.
Early on it was not much different from the first game.
Forestburg was passing through Saint Jo’s zone defense and getting easy looks for its big post player Kyler Willett and looks in the mid-post for scorer Jesus Sanchez. They combined to score all of the team’s points in the quarter.
With the Longhorns up 8-0 midway through the first quarter, Saint Jo suffered a big set back when the team’s best post player Trent Gaston went down with a serious leg injury that put him on the bench for the rest of the game.
Forestburg led 17-6 after the first quarter.
The Panthers had to double-down on having high energy and feisty play to make up for their size disadvantage. They started to employ a full-court press, generally started to win the hustle balls and did their best to try and speed up the Longhorns pace faster than what they wanted to play.
Forestburg took a hit when Willett picked up his fourth foul and had to sit not just for most of the second quarter, but all of the third quarter as well.
The Longhorns survived offensively in the second quarter with five different players scoring at least one basket, but the good looks were harder to generate without Willett and his size advantage out there.
Still, Forestburg led 32-14, but Saint Jo came screaming back in the second half.
The Panthers were finally able to have several 3-pointers go in for them in the third quarter after only one found the net in the first half. Saint Jo made three in the period while the defensive intensity really seemed to bother and limit the Longhorns, who only scored seven points.
The Panthers cut the lead to 10 points, down 39-29 but had the game flipped in their style and favor with a raucous crowd getting into it.
Even with Willett coming back in for Forestburg in the fourth quarter, Saint Jo’s charge continued to come.
Midway through and with only four minutes left to play in the game, the Panthers had cut the Longhorns lead to single-digits 41-34 and Forestburg had only scored two points.
The Longhorns did not sweat as they started earning a lot of trips to the free throw line from an aggressive Panthers team that was not just going to let them burn clock.
Despite earning only three attempts in the first three quarters, Forestburg went 10-12 at the free throw line to keep Saint Jo at bay, even as the Panthers cut the lead to six points in the final minutes of action.
The Longhorns won 53-43 thanks to the good free throw shooting.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.