We had a full week of basketball last week, which was good for us, but a little tiresome. We started the week off by playing Goldthwaite at their place on Dec. 6. As it usually is when we play Goldthwaite, it came down to the wire. It was a back and forth contest and neither team could ever keep a lead for long. We would get up on them a little, but could never put it out of reach. Goldthwaite made it interesting. With San Saba up by 5, with a few seconds left, Goldthwaite hit a 3 pointer to pull within 2. San Saba got the inbounds in, and ran the clock out and won the game 39-37. Luke Cox led the scoring for the Dillos with 14 points and also had 13 rebounds, J.T. Mathis had 8 points, Zack Davis had 5 points, Ryan Pannell had 4 points and 10 rebounds, Clayton Perry had 4 points, Ryan Guidroz had 3 points, and Kelan Verette had 1 point. On Thursday, Dec. 8, we traveled to Hico for a tournament. Our first round draw was against 4A Stephenville JV. All I am going to say about that game is Stephenville’s JV won the game and they are very, very, good. Leading scorers for the Dillos were: JT Mathis with 9, Zack Davis with 8, Aaron Perez with 6, Luke Cox with 5, Kelan Verette with 5, Ryan Pannell with 4, Clayton Perry with 3, and Tanner Hawkins with 1.In the second round of the tournament we faced 2A Clifton. We started well and took a 17-7, first quarter lead. In the second quarter, we increased our lead by one and led 28-17 at the half. Clifton fought back a little in the third and cut our lead down to 37-30 after three quarters. We played them even in the fourth quarter and hit some free throws late and held on to win 51-45. Luke Cox and Ryan Pannell both had good games with Luke scoring 17 points and 8 rebounds, and Ryan with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Others scoring for the Dillos were Clayton Perry, Ryan Guidroz, and JT Mathis with 5 each, and Kelan Verette, Tanner Hawkins, and Aaron Perez with 2 each.Winning our second game in the tournament put in the Consolation game and we face Lake Worth’s JV. Lake Worth is a big 3A right outside of Ft. Worth. They were very quick and athletic, and they pressed us full court and half court the entire game, and substituted 5 kids every two or three minutes of the game. I was glad they pressed us like they did because it gave us a chance to work our press offense. And I have to say that we handled their press very well. We broke their press and got a lot of layups off of our press break. We never had a chance to really set up and run our offense. Lake Worth started off well and took a 19-10 first quarter lead. We played them even in the second quarter, each scoring 10 and went in at half down 29-20. In the third quarter our zone defense gave them some fits and we went on a 14-3 run and took a 34-32 lead. The fourth quarter got pretty exciting. We had a good quarter scoring 16, and increased our lead a little, but Lake Worth scored 17 in the fourth quarter and hit 5 threes. They had 9 threes in the entire game, but in the fourth quarter, they hit threes on their last three possessions of the game, and their last three put them up 49-48 with 10 seconds to go in the game. We threw the ball in and got to half court and called time-out. We inbounded again and the ball was tipped out of bounds by Lake Worth. We inbounded one last time with about 7 seconds on the clock. The ball was on our sideline down in the corner. Clayton Perry inbounds to JT Mathis, then kicked out to Zack Davis at the wing, then Zack quickly reversed it across the top of the key to Luke Cox who had a lane to the basket and layed it up for the score with about .2 seconds left. Dillos win 50-49. It was an exciting game and good experience gained. It was good for us to be in a situation like that. The boys responded well and I was extremely proud of them. They are getting better game-by-game and starting to come together. Leading scorers for the game: Ryan Pannell with 16 pts and 9 rebounds, Clayton Perry with 12 points and four steals, Luke Cox with 10 pts, and Zack Davis and Aaron Perez with 6 pts each. When this comes out we will have played Brady on Dec. 13 and we will host Blanco on Dec. 16 at 8:00 PM. Come out and support our kids.