The Wisner-Pilger Boys fell 41-38 to West Point-Beemer in the first round of the East Husker Conference Tournament at Howells-Dodge Saturday night.
The Gators led 11-9 after one before winning the second quarter 13-12 to go up 24-21 at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Cadets turned a 26-23 deficit into a 33-26 lead by going on a 10-0 run. West Point-Beemer led 33-29 at the end of three.
Wisner-Pilger won the fourth quarter 9-8, but that was overshadowed by Hughes' buzzer beating three pointer.
Keegan Ruskamp led the Gators with 14 points while Jayden Raabe and Hunter Waterman notched 8 apiece.
Head Coach Duane Mendlik on the loss. "I thought we played very well. I thought we got our hands on a lot of balls. We didn't the steals that we should of, we got on our hands on a lot of balls. I thought we played with a lot of intensity. I'm very happy with the kids in that we're getting better on some of those things. So we just got to continue to clean up some of the things that we don't do well, and the free throw line is one of them."
Wisner-Pilger (6-11) takes on Howells-Dodge (9-9) in a consolation game at Howells-Dodge Friday evening at 5:00.
The Jaguars lost 55-44 to Madison in the first round of the tournament on Saturday.
Wisner-Pilger defeated Howells-Dodge 56-39 in Howells on January 13th.
This is a very interesting game if you ask me. The Gators have dropped three in a row while the Jaguars have dropped three out of their last four.
Neither team is playing great right now, but one of these teams is going to be in a better position after this game than they were to start it.
Wisner-Pilger has three tough games to end the regular season following this one so this is one the Gators really need to get to give themselves some confidence and momentum heading into the home stretch.
Both teams really need this game if they want to stay out of the bunny bracket game for sub-districts.
The Gators probably need it more though as right now Howells-Dodge is ahead of Wisner-Pilger in power points, and if the Jaguars knock off the Gators this time around, Wisner-Pilger's fate of playing Stanton in the play-in game of Sub-District C2-7 could be decided.
Wisner-Pilger can't worry about seedings and all those kinds of things right now though. The Gators just have to go out there and play ball, and let those kinds of things take care of themselves.
Ruskamp, Raabe, and Waterman need to play well offensively again for Wisner-Pilger, and the Gators have to forget about and shake off the loss to the Cadets.
It's never easy for a team to bounce back after losing a heartbreaker at the buzzer, but that is what Wisner-Pilger must do to get back on track.
One of these teams is due to stop their current slide and win, and the Gators hope it is them.
Both teams have been so inconsistent this year that this one is tough to predict.
I feel the game can go either way though. I don't really think there's a clear cut winner in this game given how the two teams have played recently.
I would give Wisner-Pilger an advantage in playing a little bit better recently, but I offset it with the fact Howells-Dodge is playing at home.
With that said, it didn't seem to matter where the game was played the first time around as again the Gators knocked off the Jaguars on their home court on the 13th of last month.
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