Hastings is 0-4 against Bennington since February of 2019 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. The Hastings Tigers will head out on the road to square off against the Bennington Badgers. Hastings will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Nebraska Rankings (they are ranked 153rd, while Bennington is ranked 41st).
Hastings' recent rough patch got a bit rougher on Thursday after their third straight loss. They fell to Norris 61-55. Having run the score up that high, both teams might be doing some extra defensive drills very soon.
Bennington suffered their closest loss yet this season on Thursday. They fell just short of Elkhorn by a score of 54-51. Bennington has now taken an 'L' in back-to-back games.
Even though the team lost, they still had their share of impressive performances. One of the most dominant came from Austin Kaiser, who scored 15 points along with eight rebounds and four steals. The team also got some help courtesy of Gavin Olson, who scored 11 points along with two steals.
Hastings dropped their record down to 5-9 with that defeat, which was their fourth straight at home. As for Bennington, their loss dropped their record down to 8-7.
Hastings came up short against Bennington in their previous meeting back in December of 2023, falling 47-37. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Kaiser, who scored 20 points along with three steals. Now that Hastings knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.
