Hawks fall to Panthers in OT

Holste had a stomachache, chills and possibly a fever, Lingel said.

“I thought early in the game our energy wasn’t there that’s why some of the shots were a little short,” Lingel said. “We had some good looks early, but we just missed them.”

The Hawks finished the first quarter behind the Panthers 16-8 but redeemed themselves in the second quarter with a lead of 25-20.

Rebounding and preventing any turnovers is what contributed to that improvement in the second quarter, Lingel said.

Junior Jesse Williams had 10 rebounds while teammates Holste and Kai Robertson both had six.

Throughout regulation, both teams would trade the lead until the fourth quarter. As the game was winding down, Prairie narrowed down the lead and finally caught Horizon.

“I thought we had a chance to win it in regulation. They came out and played zone,” Lingel said. “Generally speaking, you don’t see that a lot with only eight or 10 seconds left in the game. Generally, you’re playing man, but they packed the zone and they forced us to shoot an outside jump shot.”

The crowed was stunned and fell silent when time ran out.

During overtime, it seemed energy level was low just like at the beginning of the game, but was evidently a case of fatigue.

“We did talk about as a team about how you never know in any game what missed opportunities are going to come back and haunt you,” Lingel said.

“We had a few looks early and we missed. All we needed was one of those and we would have won the game. So, we talked about having a little more focus early in the game so that those easy ones, we don’t let those get away.”

Horizon will travel to Dayville/Monument Jan. 3 at 6 p.m.