1/25/18: @Hinckley-Finlayson

Pine City Pioneer, Jesse Logan

Hinckley-Finlayson 68, Pine City 66

After ending Braham’s reign of dominance in the GRC last season, the Jaguars have continued on to greater heights this year. Hinckley-Finlayson entered this game ranked #3 in the state in Class A, and has only lost twice. The Dragons came out ready to play and built a nice lead early only to see the Jags bounce back and take a 43-36 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

“What a fun game and fun atmosphere,” said Allen. “When you can walk into another school and have almost every seat filled it is a lot of fun. Shout-out to all the Dragon fans who traveled for the game; I think we were louder than the Hinckley fans. It is not often I struggle to hear myself out on the court, or that our boys can’t hear me. That is a good problem to have. Our boys did not flinch at the moment; very proud of them. They did not back down from any of the adversity they saw in the game.”

In the second half, Pine City would fall behind by as many as 12, but battled back and held leads at several points down the stretch. Despite a large foul and free throw disparity in favor of the Jaguars, Pine City had a chance to win the game. With the ball in their possession and down one with about 10 seconds to play, Clay Logan’s shot was blocked and the ball went out of bounds off of him. The Jags would make a free throw with two seconds remaining, but the Dragons never got a buzzer-beater shot off and lost by a bucket.

“Hinckley-Finlayson is tough, a great team,” said Allen. “They are currently ranked second in the state. We battled all night with them; [I] was really proud of how we played and executed our game plan. We had our chances, and I thought we left it all out on the court. You can walk away from that and keep your head up, feel proud of what you did.”

Pine City got key contributions across the board, both offensively and defensively. Clay Logan finished with 21 points while Seth Logan had 15 and Rademacher 11.

The Dragons had another key GRC game coming up when they hosted Braham on Tuesday, Jan. 30. Pine City will host Hinckley-Finlayson in the last game of the regular season on Feb. 2.

Varsity: L (66-68)
JV: W (64-43)
C-Squad: L (37-51)