The No. 1 team in Class 3A ended Hamilton Heights’ season Tuesday in first-round play at Sectional 24.
Sectional host New Castle beat the Huskies 70-51. The Trojans led 20-9 after the first quarter and 34-21 at halftime. Heights cut New Castle’s lead to 50-42 by the end of the third period, with Tyler Wiltermood scoring eight points in that quarter and Camron Knott adding another seven.
The Huskies would continue to hang with the Trojans for the first part of the fourth, with coach Chad Ballenger saying his team cut New Castle’s lead to “five, six and seven points with about four minutes to go,” but New Castle pulled away in the game’s final four minutes.
“I thought at times we did a pretty good job defensively, we just never put the multiple stops down,” said Ballenger. “One thing that we did was our kids fought hard. I couldn’t have be more proud of a group that fought.
“The last four minutes, we came up empty on those possessions. We had to foul and they just spread us out.”
Knott scored 14 points for the Huskies, with Gus Etchison adding 11 and Wiltermood scoring 10. Drayden Thomas pulled nine rebounds, with Caleb Bean and Wiltermood both collecting seven. Etchison had five rebounds.
Heights finished its season with a 9-14 record.
New Castle 70, Heights 51
Heights FG FT TP PF
Camron Knott 6-10 0-0 14 1
Drayden Thomas 1-7 2-2 4 2
Gus Etchison 4-12 2-3 11 2
Caleb Bean 3-7 0-0 6 4
Tyler Wiltermood 4-8 2-4 10 4
Michael Cross 1-2 4-4 6 0
AJ Field 0-5 0-0 0 2
Hudson Hochstedler 0-0 0-0 0 0
Sam Wahl 0-0 0-0 0 0
Max Beale 0-1 0-0 0 2
Dawson Phifer 0-0 0-0 0 0
Grant LePoidevin 0-0 0-0 0 1
Totals 19-52 10-13 51 18
Score by Quarters
Heights 9 12 21 9 – 51
New Castle 20 14 16 20 – 70
Heights 3-point shooting (3-18) Knott 2-5, Etchison 1-4, Field 0-4, Thomas 0-3, Wiltermood 0-2.
Heights rebounds (34) Thomas 9, Bean 7, Wiltermood 7, Etchison 5, Cross 2, Wahl 1, Beale 1, Knott 1, Field 1.