After getting a close win on Friday night, the United South Central Rebels boys basketball team had a tougher battle the next day, Saturday, Jan. 20.

The Rebels fell to the Alden-Conger Knights by a score of 61-48.

“Saturday was a game we would like to forget about,” coach Adam Walker said. “We shot 16 of 68 from the field and could not find an answer for their inside post who finished the game with 25, but 18 of those came in the first half.”

The Rebels trailed by five at halftime, 27-22, but a quick 6-0 run gave them new life and a one-point lead two minutes into the second half.

However, Alden-Conger went down and missed a deep 3-point try, but the rebound bounced right back out and they knocked down a 3-pointer and never trailed the rest of the game.

“We had a really tough time. The Knights would knock down free throws late and the Rebels were not able to dig into the lead,” Walker said.

Leading the team in scoring were Jonathan Stanke with 18 and Aiden Crabtree with 12.

Blake Bullerman added eight points and led the team with 12 rebounds.

Except for free throws, the Rebels’ shooting percentages were way low. They were just 9 of 42 tries for 2-pointers (21 percent), and 7 of 26 for 3-pointers (27 percent). They made 9 of 12 free throws for 75 percent shooting from the charity stripe.

The Knights were 18 of 36 for 2-pointers (50 percent), 3 of 15 for 3-pointers (20 perccent) and 16 of 24 for free throws (67 percent).

The Rebels had just 10 turnovers to the Knights’ 17, but Alden Conger had 45 rebounds to USCs’ 31.

USC 54, Hayfield 47

The United South Central Rebel boys basketball team fended off a couple of runs by the Hayfield Vikings in both halves of their game on Friday night, Jan. 19, and came away with a 54-47 win.

Dylan Bonsack and Jon Stanke combined for seven 3-pointers on the night.

“We led by one at the half (23-22),” coach Adam Walker said. “But within minutes, Jon knocked down a 3pointer to start the second half, and Dylan hit three in a row to build up our lead to double digits.”

Stanke led the team with a double-double, scoring 20 points and nabbing 10 rebounds. Bonsack added 15 points.

“We did a great job of holding Hayfield off when it looked like they were going to make a run after we had built a 12-point lead,” the Rebels’ coach said.

Both CJ Schumann and Blake Bullerman had seven points for the Rebels. Schumann also grabbed nine rebounds and Bullerman had six.

As a team the Rebels shot 10 of 24 from inside the arc (42 percent), 8 of 23 outside the arc (35 percent) and 10 of 20 from the free-throw line (50 percent).

The Vikings were 12 of 28 (43 percent) for 2-pointers, 4 of 20 for 3-pointers (20 percent) and 11 of 18 for free throw tries (61 percent).

The Rebels had 34 rebounds to the Vikings’ 27, 13 assists to their seven.