Cowboys Headed Back to State for 3rd Time in 4 Years!

picture courtesy of Brad Anderson 

Abilene Cowboys 47  Pratt Greenbacks 42

ABILENE: The Abilene Cowboys punched their ticket to the 4A State Tournament for the third time in four seasons Saturday night in front of a capacity crowd at Abilene High School.  Abilene entered the game as the #4 seed, Pratt was the #5 seed in the 4A West bracket. Cowboy Head Coach, Erik Graefe in his fourth season has taken the team to State three times. Abilene lost in the first round of Sub-State last year.

Abilene improved to 19-3 with the win and finished the season undefeated at home and they are still undefeated against 4A competition.  Pratt ended the season 18-4 and lost in a Sub-State Championship for the third season in a row.

Saturday night, the Cowboys fell behind 11-0 to start the game.  Pratt was led early by 6’6” Sophomore, Arley Morrell and 6’2” Senior, Max Younie.  They scored all 15 of Pratt’s 1^st quarter points.  Younie went on to finish with a game-high 20 points, while Morrell totaled 12.

Abilene finally got on the board, in the opening quarter, with a Stocton Timbrook three-pointer with 3:19 to play in the 1st.  Timbrook finished with a team-high 16 points, with 13 of those points coming in the 1^st half.  His three would spark a 12-4 Abilene run to tie the game.  The run bridged parts of the 1st and 2^nd quarter and was capped on back-to-back three-pointers by Zach Miller. The Senior, knotted the game up at 15 with 6:51 to play in the half.  Later in the quarter, Abilene had an 11-0 run and outscored the Greenbacks 20-7 in the 2^nd.  The Cowboys led 29-22 at the half.

In the 3^rd quarter, the Cowboys scored the first 3 points and got up 32-22 for their biggest lead of the game.  Pratt answered with a 6-0 run and outscored Abilene 10-7 in the 3^rd.  The Greenbacks then scored the first points of the 4^th and got to within 36-34 with 7:44 to play in the game.  Abilene responded with a Keaton Hargrave free-throw and a Tyler Holloway bucket to build back the lead to 5 points.  Pratt would get no closer than 4 points the rest of the night.

Abilene will play Thursday at the Tony’s Pizza Event Center in the opening round of the 4A State Tournament.

#𝟰 𝗔𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲    9  29  36  47  (19-3)
#𝟱 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘁     15  22  32  42  (18-4)
𝗔𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲: Stocton Timbrook 16, Tyler Holloway 9, Brax Fisher 7, Zach Miller 6, Ian Crump 4, Keaton Hargrave 2, Taygen Funston 2, Weston Rock 1
𝗣𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘁: Max Younie 20, Arley Morrell 12, Noah Riley 4, Caleb Strong 4, Kollyn Strong 2