The Raccoon River Conference basketball season began on a positive note Friday evening for the Adel-Desoto-Minburn Tigers varsity squads. The Tigers welcomed the Ballard Bombers to ADM’s North Gym for the first of two league games. ADM swept Ballard in a tale of two games. The girls contest needed more than 32 minutes to decide the outcome. After 15 lead changes and seven ties in 36 minutes of play, the Tigers outlasted the Bombers, 52-48. Junior Abbie Hlas scored nine of her team-high 16 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to lead the Tigers to victory, and 10 points overall from the paint. Hlas shared with Raccoon Valley Radio after the game about attacking the rim. “When I see an opening, I take it,” Hlas said, “I’m not really thinking, it happens. Afterward, I’m like ‘Oh, ok, this is real.”
The boys’ contest had less dramatics as ADM led by double-digits most of the game, snapping a 16 game Raccoon River Conference losing streak with a 69-54 victory over Ballard. Sophomore guard Nate Mueller poured in 14 points and dished out eight assists against Ballard. He shared with Raccoon Valley Radio his thoughts after getting his first win as a varsity player. “(We) wanted to play better than Tuesday,” Mueller said, “Tuesday was very rough. I think we all knew that we didn’t play the way we’ve been playing in practice. After Tuesday, we got that out of our heads. We knew we had a good Ballard team to play and we couldn’t start out 0-2.”
The win improves the Tigers girls basketball team to 3-1 overall and the boys to 1-1. Both ADM basketball teams have the next week off before a Raccoon River Conference doubleheader next Friday at Winterset.