MANHATTAN – The Great Bend Panther basketball squads squared of with the Manhattan High School Indians in the Little Apple Tuesday night for their last action leading into the Christmas break. The GBHS girls fell 72-57 and the GBHS boys lost 61-45.
On the girls side, “the score didn’t reflect the kind of game the girls had,” Panthers head coach Carrie Minton said. “They played with them and they played tough.”
But, some missed opportunities at the charity stripe and a run by the Indians in the third quarter left the Panthers behind. Minton credited the Manhattan girls for playing a solid game with few mistakes.
None the less, Minton was proud of her young team.
The Panthers were ahead 15-14 at the end of the first quarter, but trailed 29-26 at the half. The third period score was 50-41 Manhattan and the game ended 72-57 in favor of the Indians.
The leading scorer for Great Bend was Lauren Welsch with 26 points. She was followed by Regan Unruh with 12, Carly Dreiling with eight and Macy Moyers with six. Hannah Mauler and Morgan Kottas each added two and Mariah Stein added one.
For the boys, “we played better,” said head coach Chris Battin. His team was down by only five at the intermission.
However, “they wore us down and took advantage of some late turnovers,” he said. This allowed them to pull away in the second half.
The boys are improving, Battin said. “We just have to clean up some little mistakes and prevent the turnovers and we will be in games.”
Manhattan led at the end of each period. The scoring by quarter was 13-7, 23-18, 44-33 and 61-45.
The top scorer for Great Bend was Kody Crosby with 12, followed by Wyatt Bryant with 10, Trey Ibarra with nine and Shade Wondra with 7. Blake Sullivan chipped in three and Jacob Murray two.