Kansas High School Basketball - Minneola thwarts Cunningham
December 6, 2024: Cunningham, KS 67035 The crowd at Friday's non-league challenge between the Minneola Wildcats (Minneola, KS) and the host Cunningham Wildcats (Cunningham, KS), observed Minneola's basketball team knock off Cunningham by a score of 47-37.
The Wildcats (1-0) will now prepare for their challenge against Rolla (Rolla, KS). The Pirates come into the non-league challenge with a 0-2 record. In their last challenge, Rolla dropped by Walsh (Walsh, CO), 42-19, in a non-league challenge.
In their next game, the Wildcats encounter the Argonia Raiders (Argonia, KS) in a non-league challenge, on Tuesday, December 17. Cunningham will attempt to improve on its 0-1 season record.
First Quarter
Cunningham Wildcats got off to a slow start offensively, trying to make offenses work against unexpected variety of zone defenses.
Second Quarter
Ellie McGuire heated up with 12 of the team's 14 points of the second quarter. Cunningham had some momentum, but a buzzer three point shot made by Minneola going into halftime hurt, putting us down by 12, 20-32.
Third Quarter
The Cunningham Wildcat defense picked things up in the early part of the second half, doing a better job denying the ball to Minneola's post. Cunningham got scoring from three individuals in the 3rd quarter.
Fourth Quarter
Cunningham felt like we had all the momentum in the fourth quarter. We were able to get several of Minneola's players fouled out of the game by wisely attacking the basket. We got ourselves to the free throw line more than we typically do, though we had a poor free throw percentage on the night, only making 10/26. We held Minneola's leading scorer to only three points in the second half. A tough loss left us with clear areas of improvement as we move into a week of three games, with our preseason tournament.
