Forestburg vs Gold-Burg
The Forestburg Longhorns picked up their first district win in three season by beating Gold-Burg at home on Friday.
The Longhorns turned things around in the second half in order to win 53-47 against the Bears.
Both teams headed into the game looking for its first district win. Both had played some of the top teams in the district so far with not great results, but had reason to believe Friday’s game was winnable.
Forestburg is a young team with no seniors filled with mostly underclassmen.
With a recommitment to basketball from the young group along with some much needed depth, the team has won some non-district games this year after struggling to do so the last two years.
Gold-Burg is a bit older and more experienced, but needed to put all of its pieces together for things to work out.
With neither team playing any games during the holiday break, both were still trying to get things together on Friday.
The Bears’ full-court pressure defense was causing some havoc for the Longhorns in the first half.
Both teams initially wanted to play fast, but it was too fast at times for Forestburg which led to turnovers that Gold-Burg fed off of.
While the Longhorns scored enough against the press to keep the game close at halftime down only 29-25, it looked like the type of game that was benefitting the Bears as it went on.
The second half saw Forestburg calm things down and methodically break the press while playing solid defense which led the Longhorns starting the quarter on a 17-3 run to build a double-digit lead at one point.
Gold-Burg rallied to finish the quarter better when Forestburg’s big post player Kyler Willett had to sit with foul issues and trailed only 45-38 heading into the fourth quarter.
It was more back and forth as the Bears were able to have some moments of press defense chaos trying to claw their way back into the game.
They got as close to cutting it to 51-47 with two minutes left in the game.
The Longhorns were able to hang on, making a couple of free throws in the final minutes to win 53-47.
Jesus Sanchez led Forestburg with 27 points while making six 3-pointers. Willett was second with 14 points and 13 rebounds.
For Gold-Burg, Isaac Renteria led the team with 15 points while Jayon Grace scored 14 and Aidan Foster scored 11 points.

Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley Bulldogs lost a tough game against Midway on Friday night.
The Falcons won 51-24 against the Bulldogs.
Prairie Valley came into the game hoping to slow down Midway’s offense, which Coach Seth Stephens thought the team did well enough in the first half. Unfortunately, the Falcons got hot and made five 3-pointers in the third quarter and outscored the Bulldogs 21-7 to break the game open.
Prairie Valley could not recover since the team was having trouble scoring all game long.
Tyler Winkler led the team with 15 points and six rebounds. Tyson Easterling was second with five points and four rebounds. Trae Campbell scored the other four points.

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