Royal Valley boys basketball team falls to Rossville

The Royal Valley High School boys basketball team spent most of Tuesday night playing catch-up during the first round of the Class 3A Sub-State tournament in Rossville. Despite narrowing the gap to just one possession during the last minute of the game, the Panthers came up short against the Rossville Bulldogs 66-62.

“It seemed like it took a while for us to get going,” said head coach Keith Pelton. “We gave Rossville a head start and fought our way back.”

After the first quarter, the Bulldogs were up 17-13. They added 14 points in the second quarter while the Panthers had 10 points.

The Panthers led the third quarter 15-10, and the score was 41-38 in favor of Rossville at the start of the fourth.

“When the score got close, we started trying too hard to make some things happen,” coach Pelton said. “We were trying to do too much too soon.”

 In the final minute, the Bulldogs led 58-56 and a series of fouls drove the score up to 63-60 in the last 20 seconds.

“It wasn’t a lack of trying. I think we could have been a little more patient,” Pelton said. 

The Bulldogs were 24-32 (75 percent) at the charity stripe while the Panthers were 7-12 (58 percent). The Panthers were led by senior Leondre Hale, who had 16 points, including four three-point shots.

The Panthers, who had five seniors, end their season with an overall record of 7-14.

“We had a lot of players that had their first varsity experience this year,” Pelton said. “I thought we were pretty young, and we worked throughout the year on all being on the same page at the same time. Hopefully, the legacy those seniors leave behind motivates the underclassmen and helps them learn from the struggles we had this year. We just need to tighten some things down and work on some things during the off season.”

Rossville advances to the second round of the tournament where they will play St. Marys on Friday. The winner of that game will play in the championship game against either Silver Lake or Perry-Lecompton.

RV: 13-10-15-24 – 62

Rossville: 17-14-10-25 – 66

Individual statistics

RV: Hale 1 (4) 2-2 16, Spoonhunter 3 (2) 2-5 14, Broxterman 5 0-1 10, Fenske 3 3-4 9, Lee 1 (2) 0-0 8, Frisby 0 (1) 0-0 3, Hale 1 0-0 2. Totals 14 (9) 7-12 62.

Rossville: Musick 6 5-6 17, Morris 0 (3) 7-10 16, Hulbert 3 (1) 6-8 15, Anderson 3 1-2 7, Quiett 0 (2) 0-0 6, Dyche 0 5-6 5. Totals 12 (6) 24-32 66.