By Spencer Spilman
The Hays Rebels basketball team played its first basketball game of 2016 Saturday against the Bowie Bulldogs.
The Rebels trailed almost the entire game, and despite their comeback attempts, fell to the Bulldogs 56-46.
Hays struggled Saturday as they were able to take open shots throughout the contest, but it seemed like someone closed the lid on the basket and the shots just didn’t fall.
Bowie got out to an early lead in the first quarter but the Rebels fought back and found themselves down 12-11 after a low scoring quarter.
The scoring picked up in the second as both teams went back and forth for the majority of the quarter. The Bulldogs then turned up the heat and got out to a comfortable lead.
Bowie’s Cole Blagdan was on fire from long range while Austin Duffin dominated inside. Along with a huge dunk, Duffin scored a game-high 19 points and 13 rebounds for the Bulldogs. Blagdan finished with 15 points.
The stellar play from Bowie near the end of the half sent them into the locker room with a 34-22 lead over the Rebels.
Hays came out of halftime looking to improve on offense, but much like the first half, they just couldn’t make jump shots. Hays High’s Charles Bohannon found almost all of his team-high 11 points by getting by defenders and to the basket.
Hayden Hoekstra finished with six points but he was one bright spot in the rebounding department. He battled hard for offensive rebounds which gave the Rebels some easy second chance points.
Hays also got 10 points from Matthew Rindahl off the bench, but the offense struggled to hit the open looks all night.
The Rebels went into the fourth quarter down by 10 points, but had chances to pull even.
Bohannon completed an old-fashioned three-point play to pull the Rebels within six points of Bowie with a few minutes remaining.
After fouling Bowie, Hays failed to box out on missed free throws multiple times and cost them valuable opportunities to close the gap on the scoreboard.
Rebel head coach Sam Lunz was exasperated by the lack of rebounding late in the game by his team.
“We put ourselves in position to win the game, but this game came down to our ability to rebound,” said Lunz. “That’s possessions we don’t need to give up, especially in a game like this.”
Bohannon echoed his coach’s comments, while also stressing they need to make shots.
“We couldn’t hit anything, and rebounding on free throws is extremely important, and I think we missed just about every crucial rebound we needed to get back in the game,” Bohannon said.
Rebounding woes late in the game, along with the large number of missed shots, was too much for Hays to overcome.
The Rebels will be idle Friday, but will return to action on Jan. 12 at Lake Travis.
