Blazers Drop Weekend Games

 The Eastside Blazers (6-9, 1-5) had a weekend of back-to-back games first taking on Westview (11-4, 5-2) on Friday night at home, then traveling south down to Heritage (6-10) on Saturday. The season process of continuing to get better each night was on display as the Blazers showed moments in both games of being able to compete but in the end came up short.

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On Friday Eastside battled with one of the top 2A programs in the area through the first quarter as it was tied at 7 before Westview was able to knock down two free throws in the final seconds to win the quarter by 2. Westview took that momentum through the second quarter and third quarter as they built a 42-18 lead on Eastside. Our Blazers battled in the fourth eventually losing the quarter 7-8 to bring the final score to 25-51. Nolan Baker led the way with 7 points and 7 rebounds, while Loden Johnson added 5 points. The junior varsity boys fell to Westview 23-53. Bryce Strong was the leading scorer for the Blazers with 9, Ryan Strong added in 5, and Micah Miller had 4.

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Saturday was a similar story as our Blazers battled all game long but just could not come up with enough stops and scores as they fell to the Patriots 45-59. A slow start for both teams kept the game close in the first before Heritage hit two big threes to give them a 11-6 lead. The second quarter was back in forth as the deficit grew by two at the half 15-24. A tough third quarter grew the deficit to 16 heading into the fourth quarter. As always the Blazers battled and scored 22 points in the fourth to win the quarter by 2, but it was just a little to late. Clay Minnick was the scoring leader for Eastside with 11 points, followed by Ryder Reed with 10, Loden Johnson with 8, and Evan Elden with 6 points off two threes in the fourth quarter. The JV team also came up short by a score of 25-57. Evan Elden lead the Blazers in scoring with 6 points, while Konner Johnson added 5.

Next up for the Eastside Blazers is a lone weekday rematch at Hamilton (1-10) on Thursday night. The JV game will start at 6:00pm with varsity following. These two teams met on January 9th in the NECC tournament opening round as the Blazers fought for a close victory 61-55. Eastside Lady Blazers (21-3) will also be hosting the girls sectional this week starting on Tuesday night with a big game as our girls host Central Noble for the third time this season in the second game of the night. The girls bracket is below with Game 1 and 2 on Tuesday starting at 6:00pm with game 1. Game 3 and 4 will be on Friday starting at 6:00pm and the Championship is Saturday at 7:30pm. All games taking place at Eastside. We would like to wish our girls the best of luck!

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