WICHITA — The high school basketball season is officially over for the Great Bend boys after a 67-41 loss on the road against Bishop Carroll.
The Eagles entered the Class 5A sub-state with the same record as Great Bend, 7-13.
Bishop Carroll was the fourth seed, and Great Bend came in at No. 5.
“We played hard,” GBHS head coach Chris Battin said. “We were outmatched. Bishop Carroll has a good team, and their record is mostly because they play in a tough city league. They’re a really good basketball team and we got them on a really hot night.”
Great Bend trailed 17-13 after eight minutes, but the Eagles turned things on in the second quarter.
“In the first quarter, we played fairly even with them,” Battin said. “In the second quarter, a lot of things went wrong. They jumped out to a big lead. They had an 18-point lead at half. We just never got back into it after that.”
The Panthers trailed 37-19 heading into intermission.
Great Bend was led by Dillon Reiser, who scored 11 points, including seven in the fourth quarter.
Shade Wondra added 10 points.
Battin said now that everything is said and done, he can appreciate the progress his team has made.
“I thought we had a pretty good season,” Battin said. “The kids fought hard this year and improved every day. We started out a little rough and it could’ve been easy to check it in when we were sitting there at 1-7 and ultimately 1-9 right there before the mid-season tournament.
“We finally got our second wind, winning 5 of 6 and ending up going 6-10 in the second half of our season. That was a pretty good run, and we played some pretty good teams in that stretch.”
Battin said he hopes to see the season’s second-half upswing continue to next year.
“I thought the kids did a nice job this year,” Battin said. “We’ve got some things to build on, and our seniors have started helping us turn the corner. Hopefully it’s up from here.”

                                      — Kevin Price