BY MACK McCLURE
EL DORADO — In a complete turnaround from less than 20 hours earlier, the Great Bend High School Panthers basketball team completely shut down host El Dorado Saturday morning at the Bluestem Classic.
The Panthers limited El Dorado to just two third-quarter points and rolled to a 41-30 victory in a game where they led by 21 points at one point.
Great Bend head coach Chris Battin was a lot happier with his team than from the day before.
“We rebounded a lot better than we did (on Friday) and we came out with a lot better attitude, played really hard and really well.”
Jace Bowman, a junior guard, led Great Bend with 12 points — all of which he scored in the first half.
Cameron Casey added seven points, hitting two of the Panthers’ four 3-pointers. The other two came from Bowman.
Even though the Panthers missed 6 of 9 free throws in the fourth quarter, where they were outscored 13-7 in the final eight minutes, they still won handily enough.
Much better than the day before.
“It was a completely different attitude,” Battin said. “The passion was there and they wanted to win (Saturday).
“We were getting after it and offensively, we were attacking them harder. I think collectively, our guys decided to get after it and play harder and they did an excellent job.”
Wichita Collegiate won the tournament with a 57-48 win over Wichita Kapaun-Mt. Carmel. In the third-place game,
Gardner-Edgerton defeated Trinity Academy 66-44 and Circle beat Campus 58-31 for fifth.
2011 Bluestem Classic
Saturday
Seventh-place
Great Bend 41, El Dorado 30
GREAT BEND (5-7)
Connor Sell 0 2-4 2, Jace Bowman 4 2-3 12, Greg Hildebrand 3 0-0 6, Cameron Casey 2 1-2 7, Jeff Pike 1 0-0 3, Will Gray 1 0-2 2, Dakota Ellis 2 2-2 6, Roderick Frise 1 0-0 2, Wyatt Bayless 1 0-0 2. Totals 15 6-17 41.
EL DORADO
Riedel 0 0-1 0, Payne 2 0-0 5, Nuckolls 3 0-0 8, House 2 2-2 6, Riffel 0 0-0 0, Crain 1 0-4 2, Bookout 0 0-2 9, Just 0 0-0 0, Brown 2 5-6 9. Totals 10 7-15 30.
Delete - Merge UpEl Dorado 9 6 2 13 — 30
Great Bend 10 15 9 7 — 41
Three-point goals — Great Bend 4 (Bowman 2, Casey); El Dorado 3 (Nuckolis 2, Payne).
