After having lost a blowout in their previous game against Sterling, the Hoisington Cardinals were happy to have found some success on Tuesday. They rang in the new year with a 51-38 victory over Smoky Valley. That's another feather in the cap for Hoisington, who also won these teams' last head-to-head.
Leading Hoisington to victory were Mason Martin and Tony Moore. Martin scored 18 points, while Moore scored 18 points along with three steals. That makes it three consecutive games in which Moore has scored at least 25% of Hoisington's points. Another player making a difference was Caiden Hoffman, who scored ten points along with seven rebounds.
Several Vikings players turned in solid performances, despite ultimately coming up short. Perhaps the best among those players was Ki Blanchat, who scored 20 points. The team also got some help courtesy of Ty Heitschmidt, who scored six points along with six rebounds and three steals.
Hoisington has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a massive bump to their 3-3 record this season. As for Smoky Valley, they bumped their record down to 1-5 with that loss, which was their sixth straight at home dating back to last season.
Hoisington will take on Beloit at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Beloit knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with flashy point totals in its past four matchups -- so hopefully Hoisington likes a good challenge. Smoky Valley will get a bit of extra time to process the loss as their next game is a ways off. They'll take on Trinity on January 23rd.
