Prairie Valley vs Forestburg
The Prairie Valley Bulldogs closed out district play on Friday with a last second win at Forestburg to clinch the final playoff spot in the district.
The Bulldogs won 49-48 thanks to a last second contact layup from Tyler Winkler.
It was Prairie Valley’s final district game and it needed to win in order to hold off the Longhorns from possibly forcing a play-in with a win in their final two games.
Forestburg did beat the Bulldogs earlier in the season at a tournament in November, but Prairie Valley paid it back by winning by 27 points during the first district game in January.
The young Longhorns have been susceptible to pressure defenses and Prairie Valley’s two senior guards Eli Croxton and Winkler were active with their hands early to try and take advantage.
While it did provide some points, Forestburg got more cautious and started to use its advantage, big Kyler Willett in the post along with several shooters.
The game was tied at 14-14 after the first quarter and the Longhorns led 26-24 at halftime.
The Bulldogs were leaning heavy on Winkler and while he and his team were getting good outside looks against Forestburg’s zone defense, the team made only three in the entire game.
Prairie Valley started to look for other ways to score and did a better job defensively in the third quarter to take a 39-33 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Longhorns quickly tied the game up at 39-39 in the first two minutes of the final period and it was back and forth until the final buzzer.
With the score tied at 45-45, Croxton made a floater in the lane to put Prairie Valley up two points. Forestburg freshman point guard Jesse Wadsworth came down and made a 3-pointer to put his team up 48-47 with a minute left.
Prairie Valley had free throw attempts to take the lead, but missed both as the Longhorns stayed in the lead. After running some clock, Forestburg turned the ball over as Croxton drew a charge to give the Bulldogs the ball back with 23 seconds left.
Following a time out 10 seconds later, Prairie Valley gave the ball to Winkler who drove to his left and put up a tough contested floater over two taller players as he fell down.
It went in to put Prairie Valley up 49-48.
Forestburg quickly tried to inbound the ball to get up court for a half court heave, but the Bulldogs were pressuring and the ball went straight into the hands of Dale Neugebauer who quickly passed the ball to Croxton to dribble out the remaining time and seal the win.
Prairie Valley’s Winkler led all scorers with 37 points while Dakota Fore was second with six points.
For the Longhorns, Willett led the team with 16 points while Wadsworth was second with 15 and Jesus Sanchez added 13 points.

Nocona
The Nocona Indians won an up and down game against Petrolia on Friday night.
The Indians won 56-47 against the Pirates.
Nocona wanted to keep its first place position and could not afford to look past a Petrolia team that is outside of the playoff picture.
The Indians started well up 12-6 after the first quarter, but Petrolia got some things going offensively in the second quarter to cut the lead down to 27-24 at halftime.
Nocona had a huge third quarter scoring 22 points which allowed it to build a double-digit lead heading into the fourth quarter 49-39.
The pace slowed down a lot in the final period with both teams combining to score only 15 points. This allowed Nocona to keep its lead as it won 56-47.
Conley Kleinhans led the team with 15 points and five assists while Luke Fuller was second with 13 points. Ryder Oswald grabbed a team high 10 rebounds to go along with seven points.

Saint Jo vs Bellevue
The Saint Jo Panthers were able to win against Bellevue on Friday night in a big way.
The Panthers won 93-41 against the Eagles to keep their dreams alive for possibly moving up in the district standings.
Saint Jo was up 23-9 after the first quarter and never looked back. Panther Coach Ryan Bruce had little to complain about besides some defensive points.
“We played a really solid basketball game. We started kind of slow on the defensive end but it wound up leading to a lot of our transition points. These last two games have been good for us. I hope we are peaking at the right time because we have a tough route ahead of us.”
Brice Durham led the team with 24 points and six made 3-pointers. In all five players scored in double-figures including Kile Thurman (18), Collin Thomas (11), Caleb Workman (11) and Devin Stewart (10).