LA GRANGE — The La Grange High School boy’s basketball team defeated Schulenburg High School Nov. 20 at Leopards Gym by a final score of 60-39. La Grange surged out to a big lead in the first half and the Shorthorns cut into the lead in the second half, but it wasn’t enough as the Leopards continued to produce on the offensive end.
“I spent the last two years working with Coach Hoog, so we're good friends," said first- year La Grange head boy’s basketball coach Trent Collier on playing against his former colleague and Schulenburg head boy’s basketball coach Rich Hoogendoorn.
“He’s a legend. 850 wins or something like that, so I’m not gonna sit here and say that we out coached a legend or anything like that. That’s not what happened. We just got some more pieces than he had. He’s got a program that’s way more established than ours. We’re just trying to kind of figure out how to play. There's a whole lot going on and we’re seeing growth. We’re still a long ways from where we want to be.”
La Grange senior forward Nate Scott has been a scoring machine and tallied 22 points for the outing. “I just really want everybody to work together as a team,” Scott said. “Get good chemistry together.”
Schulenburg is still establish- ing a rapport as this was their first game of the season. “I thought Coach Collier was ready to play and we weren’t,” said Hoogendoorn. “I liked the way we stopped the bleeding in the first half. Still got a lot of football in us. We'll be fine, just got to grow up a little bit. I think every one of my former assistants has beaten me, so he just joined the crew. He got the merit badge for whatever that’s worth. They’ve got a nice group. He’s a good coach. He’ll do a good job here. The Short- horns will be fine."
Schulenburg won the opening tip, but then found themselves down 15-2 with about two min- utes in the first quarter after a fast break layup from La Grange senior Jhase Scott. La Grange had a 17-4 lead to end the quar ter, which was followed by more offense from the Leopards and a 25-9 lead at the 3:45 mark in the second quarter after a tough, double-clutch layup from Scott. Schulenburg eventually cut it to a 10-point deficit at 26-16 from a fast break floater by Shorthorns sophomore point guard Jayse Janda.
La Grange held a similar cush- ion for most of the third quar ter before Leopards senior Thai Scott made it 42-28 after another fast break layup with 1:17 to go. La Grange had a 44-34 lead at the end of the third quarter, then unloaded their offense with more scoring on fast break layups and conversions from Scott, winning the game handedly at 60-39.
