The Great Bend Panthers entered their tilt with the Emporia Spartans with four consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with five. Great Bend narrowly escaped with a win as the team sidled past Emporia 45-42. Despite the win, that was the fewest points Great Bend has scored all season.
Emporia lost on Friday despite a true team effort on the offense, the best among them being River Peters, who scored 17 points. The contest was Peters' sixth in a row with at least ten points. Sheldon Stewart was another key contributor, scoring eight points along with ten rebounds.
Emporia struggled to get the ball back on offense and finished the game with only three offensive rebounds. That's the fewest offensive rebounds they've managed all season.
Great Bend pushed their record up to 5-1 with that win, which was their third straight on the road. Those good results were due in large part to their offensive dominance across that stretch, as they averaged 69.7 points per game. As for Emporia, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 4-2.
Great Bend will be home for the holidays to greet Buhler at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Buhler will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Kansas Rankings (they are ranked 228th, while Great Bend is ranked 26th). Emporia will get a bit of extra time to process the loss as their next game is a ways off. They'll take on Hayden at 7:30 p.m. on January 2, 2024.
