It was a pre-season scrimmage success for a pair of area boys basketball teams at Hillcrest Union in Kalona Monday. The WACO Warriors used a big second quarter to pull away from the BGM Bears 26-16. WACO trailed 13-11 after the first eight minutes but used their defense to spark the offense into a 15-3 run that spanned the entire second frame. The Warriors forced 13 Bears turnovers. Christian Stacy led the way for the Warriors with 11 points and four rebounds. Holden Hughes and Isaac Egli each scored four. Warrior head coach Chayse Roth talked Monday with KCII Sports about what he saw from his team.

Roth said, “We played okay tonight. I think there were a lot of things that we could improve on. We can work on our conditioning and getting in basketball shape. We tried to get out fast. It felt like we got to the basket when we wanted to, but didn’t have our legs under us to finish. Our transition defense is something we need to get a little bit better at. I thought our half court defense improved when we identified what offense they were running. As a unit, our press really got to them in the second quarter, we forced some turnovers and got easy layups off of that to break it open.”

WACO opens the season Monday at Holy Trinity Catholic.

In the nightcap Hillcrest Academy hammered the New London Tigers 38-20. The contest was tied at eight before Hillcrest put together a 30-5 run that covered nearly 12 minutes to run away for the win. Mason Bender had a big night with 12 points and five boards. Lincoln Miller added seven points. The Raven defense forced 15 New London turnovers. Raven head coach Dwight Gingerich joined KCII Sports Monday night to talk about his takeaways.

Gingerich said, “It felt like we were together defensively. We were reading each other well. We were getting in passing lanes. We had some good transition opportunities that resulted from that. We were seeing it from a number of guys. It was great to see Lincoln Miller come in and spark us off the bench. Mason Helmuth gave us good minutes off the bench. Seth (Ours), Rowan (Miller), Bryce (Bailey), Mason (Bender) and Kale (Bailey), you could feel that group was playing together well. That’s what you’re looking for. Improvement, aiming for consistency and learning and growing.”

Hillcrest starts their season Tuesday at Highland.