Bison 8th grade, 5th grade boys basketball

Leann Jankovits The McCook fifth grade boys basketball team poses with the second-place medals from the Sutherland Youth Tournament Jan. 8. The team won the Hayes Center tournament Jan. 7. From left: Marcus Gonzales, Jake Schlager, Shea Hoffman, Cody Wudtke, Sean Baker, Zayne Gillen, Cody Jankovits, Lucas Post. Not pictured: Austin Cherry.

Bison 8th A team

falls to Kearney;

B, C teams win

KEARNEY -- The McCook Junior High School eighth grade boys basketball A team lost to the Kearney Horizon 35-24 Tuesday night.

The Bison boys B and C teams won their games. The B team won 38-10 and the C team won 26-15.

Dustin Parde led the Bison A team with 10 points, followed by Chad Stull with 6, Marcus Wilson 4 and Nathan Crick 4.

"The team played its first game of the season," said coach Bill Beckenhauer. "The players played hard from the opening tip and did a good job of defense even though we were really outsized. We did a pretty good job of help-side defense guarding their bigger post players.

"The guards got the passes into our post players in good scoring positions, which created some easy shots. The game showed us several areas we need to work on to get better."

Cory Paz led the Bison B team with 9 points, followed by Austin Huffman 8, Dylan Parde 7, Jimmy Baron 6, Derek Beebe 6 and Spencer Gillen 2.

"The players played hard and did a good job of playing pressure defense," Beckenhauer said. "Our defense was the key to the win."

Bryant Hunter poured in 20 points for the Bison C team, Blair Brown added 4 and Dillon Harpham 2.

"The team played hard and Bryant Hunter shot the ball extremely well, scoring 20 of our 26 points," Beckenhauer said.

The Bison play at Chase County at 4 p.m. MT Tuesday.

Bison 5th boys

1st at Hayes Center,

2nd at Sutherland

HAYES CENTER and SUTHERLAND -- The McCook fifth grade boys team won the Hayes Center Youth Basketball Tournament Jan. 7 with a 3-0 record.

McCook defeated the Curtis fifth grade team and the Hayes Center 5th-6th grade team in the first two rounds and beat Hayes Center in the championship game.

On Jan. 8, McCook posted a 1-1 record at the Sutherland Youth Tournament. McCook defeated Curtis in the first round and lost to Hershey in the championship game.

Members of the team are Marcus Gonzales, Jake Schlager, Shea Hoffman, Cody Wudtke, Sean Baker, Zayne Gillen, Cody Jankovits, Lucas Post and Austin Cherry.