Leyton Falls Short Against South Platte

Leyton's Warrior boy's basketball team lost to the South Platte Blue Knights 49-to-38 in the semi-final round of the D2-11 Subdistrict Tournament Tuesday night at Sidney High School.

The teams had split in their previous two meetings during the season, and were evenly matched with South Platte as the number two seed and Leyton the number three seed. The first two minutes of the game were filled with turnovers as both teams struggled for shot opportunities.

South Platte finally opened the scoring at the six minute mark, and then went up 4-to-0 when Leyton struck back with sophomore Zach Henke's layup then a cost-to-coast drive to the basket by sophomore Dominic Russ to even the game at 4-to-4.

The Blue Knights started to pull away, but the Warriors hung in and kept pace. Down the stretch in the first quarter, Leyton freshman Ethan Eckhardt was effective drawing fouls and keeping the Warriors offense on track. The first quarter ended 11-to-11, and 11 fouls were committed between the teams.

The Leyton offense really struggled with the South Platte pressure defense in the beginning of the third quarter, and the Blue Knights started to pull away and opened a 21-to-14 lead at the four minute mark.

But the Warriors dug in and started to chip away at the lead, sinking baskets and making free throws when sent to the charity stripe until Leyton had cut the lead to 21-to-19 at the one minute mark.

Leyton had a chance for a final shot at the end of the quarter, but South Platte junior Joey Spencer stole the ball and put up two points at the buzzer to go to the intermission leading 23-to-19. Leyton opened the third quarter with a quick two points by freshman Jonathan Borges, then a series of turnovers by both teams stopped the scoring until South Platte's Spencer hit a three pointer to make the score 26-to-21.

The teams then traded turnovers and missed shots for the remainder of the quarter, broken up by a few scores by either team. The period ended with South Platte hanging on to a slim 30-to-27 lead. The fourth quarter started with both teams scoring , then Leyton junior Jonathan Carley sank a free throw and Eckhardt scored two to knot the score at 32-to-32.

Again the teams traded scores to move the score to 34-to-34. But after South Platte scored again followed by a Leyton free throw to move the score to 36-to-35, the Blue Knights went on an 8-to-0 run that Leyton could stop until Russ hit a three pointer in the final minute to stop the bleeding at 44-to-38. Leyton could not manage to score in the final minute while the Blue Knights added five points to take the victory with a final score of 49-to-38.

Leyton head coach Cody Gamble said, "The boys played their hearts out. They made some young mistakes, but in the end it came down to four possessions in the game that if we made any of them, we wouldn't have had to foul down the stretch."

Gamble looks forward to the future with his squad, saying, "From the beginning until the end of the season I saw drastic improvements to our team defense. 

With time we will become taller and stronger which will give us more confidence to do the things that a varsity team needs to do in order to win.  These kids got thrown to the wolves and they were pups.  I am just hoping that we will work hard enough to improve on their basketball fundamentals.  They definitely have the motivation based off what I saw in practice and on game nights."

Dominic Russ led the Warriors scoring with nine points in the loss. Leyton ends its' season with a 4-and-17 record.