By JUSTIN BURKHARDT
TopSports.news
Junior JoJo Kingcannon scored a game-high 26 points for Highland Park Tuesday night, but Kansas City-Washington pulled away in the second half for a 62-51 Meadowlark Conference win at Hi Park.
Junior JoJo Kingcannon (11) led Highland Park with 26 points in the Scots' 62-51 loss to Kansas City-Washington Tuesday night. [File photo/TSN]
The Scots, who lost nine seniors from a year ago and with Kingcannon being the lone returner with major varsity experience and coach Nate Wallace in his first season as a head coach, Highland Park knew it was going to go through growing pains this season and entered Tuesday's game on a five-game losing streak.
“Poise. I think we're losing the close ones that we have lost over the season just because of the experience factor, understanding how to value the possession, understanding kind of what I want and who I want to have the ball at certain times of certain possessions to give us the best opportunity to win,'' Wallace said.
Both teams would come out giving everything they had early as they would trade basket for basket and tie it up at six early in the game.
After a Washington 3-pointer, which the Scots would answer with a Kingcannon 3 for his seventh point of the first quarter to make it 9-9, Washington would then hit two consecutive treys to end the quarter with the 15-9 lead.
The second quarter would see both teams light up the scoreboard as Kingcannon would go to work again for his team.
Kingcannon would score the first basket of the quarter and later score five straight points to get within one at 21-20.
The Wildcats and Scots would continue to battle it out until Kingcannon would drive and get the and-one to tie it up 26 and hit the ensuing free throw to giver Highland Park the lead by a point.
Washington would then get fouled and make both free throws to re-take the lead at 28-26 before Kingcannon would drive again and get the shot to go back up 29-28.
Washington would then out-score the Scots 7-1 in the final two minutes of the second quarter to go into halftime with the lead, 35-30.
The Scots would come out of the locker room with sophomore Davion Anderson hitting his first basket of the night with a 3-pointer to get within two before Kingcannon would get fouled shooting a 3-pointer and hit all three charities to enable Highland Park to re-take the lead, 36-35.
Elliot Berry for Washington would get a shot to fall and give Washington a 37-36 advantage and that would be all it wrote for the Scots, who would run out of gas at the end of the quarter when Washington would go on a 11-0 run to make it 52-40 to end the third.
The Scots would play catch-up in the fourth and came up short in the 11-point defeat.
Kingcannon would lead all scorers with his 26-point night.
The Scots will now face Class 5A No. 2 Topeka West on Wednesday at Topeka West.
“For the city, I think it's always a big game whenever we can get the 501 schools competing versus each other,'' Wallace said. "They're one of the best teams in the state. They have a lot returning. They’re big at all positions.
"I just take the David versus Goliath approach. They’re going to be really big. We just got to figure out what slingshot works for us and what can we expose, how can we play, and we got to make shots to even keep giving us ourselves a chance. We have to make shots.”
KC-WASHINGTON 62, HIGHLAND PARK 51
KC-Washington 15 20 17 10 -- 62
Highland Park 9 21 10 11 -- 51
KC-Washington (10-6, 5-1) -- Berry 5-8 2-2 15, Smith 4-6 1-2 9, Boggess 3-12 1-4 8, Williams 3-7 1-2 7, Johnson 2-3 0-0 5, Stone 6-9 2-5 15, Hendricks 1-3 0-0 3. Totals 24-48 7-15 62.
Highland Park (3-12, 3-2) -- Kingcannon 8-18 9-10 26, Anderson 2-8 1-2 7, Montgomery 2-5 1-2 6, Drew 2-3 0-0 4, Mitchell 0-2 0-0 0, Powell 2-3 0-0 4, McMillon 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 17-42 13-16 51.
3-point goals -- KC-Washington 7 (Berry 3, Boggess, Johnson, Stone, Hendricks), Highland Park 4 (Anderson 2, Kingcannon, Montgomery). Total fouls -- KC-Washington 18, Highland Park 16. Fouled out -- none.
