By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek boys will enter post-season play on a winning note as the Patriots defeated Lake Benton 69-46 in the regular season finale in Hills Monday.
H-BC, which had a conference game against Edgerton cancelled due to Friday's snowstorm, rode a 35-21 rebounding advantage against the Bobcats to a 23-point victory.
"We played pretty decent," said Patriot coach Steve Wiertzema. "We probably won the game on the boards again. We outrebounded them by 14, so we did a good job in that area."
H-BC will open the South Section 3A Tournament tonight in Fulda with the momentum of winning two of its last three games. The eighth-seeded Patriots, 7-14 overall, play No. 9 Ellsworth in a preliminary-round game at 6 p.m.
The Patriots opened a six-point cushion (15-9) over LB in the first quarter before using an 18-14 scoring edge in the second quarter to make it a 33-23 game at the intermission.
With Chris Fransman netting five of his 11 points to lead the way, H-BC went on a 20-9 scoring run in the third quarter to open a 21-point (53-32) lead. The Patriots used a 16-14 scoring edge in the final eight minutes of play to increase the final margin of victory to 23 points.
Matt Buck had 14 points, six rebounds and four assists for the winners, while Lyle DeBoer added 12 points to the cause.
Lance Crawford and Brad Haak snared five rebounds each for H-BC. Darin DeBoer had five assists and David Top three steals.
Box score
Jess 0 1 0-0 3, D.DeBoer 1 0 0-0 2, Van Batavia 0 0 0-0 0, Van Maanen 0 0 0-0 0, Fransman 2 3 1-3 11, Haak 2 0 1-2 5, L.DeBoer 3 1 3-4 12, Van Wyhe 3 0 2-2 8, Top 3 0 2-6 8, Crawford 3 0 0-0 6, Krull 0 0 0-0 0, Buck 6 0 2-2 14.
Team statistics
H-BC: 27 of 56 field goals (48 percent), 11 of 19 free throws (58 percent), 35 rebounds, 14 turnovers.
LB: 16 of 47 field goals (34 percent), 11 of 20 free throws (55 percent), 21 rebounds, 23 turnovers.