By John Rittenhouse
The red hot Hills-Beaver Creek Patriot boys extended their longest winning streak of the season to six straight games by posting a Red Rock Conference win in Hills Thursday.
Southwest Star Concept ran into the Patriots at the wrong time.
H-BC is playing some of its best basketball of the season, and the Quasars became the latest victim as they fell by a 70-44 tally to the Patriots.
Cold shooting on the part of SSC (24 percent from the field) and H-BC's domination of the boards (43-29) proved to be deciding factors in the game.
H-BC took control of the game early by opening an 18-6 cushion in the first quarter.
The Quasars made it an 11-point difference (33-22) by halftime, but the Patriots outscored SSC 37-22 in the second half to win by 26.
H-BC increased its lead to 16 points (53-37) in the third quarter before outscoring SSC 17-7 in the final eight minutes of play.
Good shooting by Brad Haak and David Top set the pace for H-BC's offense.
Haak, who had eight rebounds and three steals, canned eight of 13 shots while netting a team-high 21 points.
Top, who had three assists along with Lyle DeBoer, made five of seven field goals during a 13-point performance.
Matt Buck had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. He also recorded four assists and three steals.
Jesse Leuthold came up with three steals for the winners.
Box score
Metzger 0 0 0-0 0, D.DeBoer 1 0 2-2 4, Roozenboom 2 0 0-2 4, Van Maanen 1 0 0-0 2, Haak 8 0 5-8 21, Leuthold 1 0 2-2 4, L.DeBoer 3 0 2-3 8, Van Wyhe 0 0 0-0 0, Top 5 0 3-4 13, Buck 3 0 5-8 11, Krull 0 0 0-0 0, Bush 1 0 1-2 3, Wiertzema 0 0 0-4 0.
Team statistics
H-BC: 25 of 57 field goals (44 percent), 20 of 35 free throws (57 percent), 43 rebounds, 23 turnovers.
SSC: 11 of 46 field goals (24 percent), 22 of 43 field goals (51 percent), 29 rebounds, 24 turnovers.