On Tuesday, Feb. 20, the Miami Trace Panthers boys varsity basketball team played the Hillsboro Indians for the third time this season.

Just one week before, on Feb. 13, the Panthers clinched the Frontier Athletic Conference outright championship with a 64-53 win over the Indians.

Back on Dec. 12, the Panthers visited Hillsboro High School and escaped with a 60-58 victory.

Last season, the teams split a pair of games, with Hillsboro winning on their home floor, 66-48 and the Panthers winning on their court, 52-50 in overtime.

The Panthers overcame the old adage (often true) of how hard it is to beat a team three times in the same season, coming away with a 59-40 victory.

Miami Trace improves to 17-6 and will play for a Sectional championship Friday night at 8 p.m. at Zane Trace High School against New Lexington. New Lexington, another team of Panthers, improved to 19-4 with a 51-40 win over Circleville Tuesday. The Tigers are 11-12 with a league game remaining against Bloom-Carroll Friday night.

As happens from time to time, a player who quietly does his job, hustles a lot and often is in the top two or three on his team in rebounds, but, who is almost never the leading scorer for his team, steps up and has a career night.

That was the case for Miami Trace senior Coleden May, who was the game’s leading scorer with 20 points and led the Panthers in rebounds with 11, including eight on the offensive glass. He also had three assists and blocked one shot.

His eight offensive rebounds gave the Panthers many second chance opportunities as the team went 25 of 46 from the field for 54 percent.

Sophomore Grant Guess hit for 15 points. He had eight rebounds and a team-high five assists, to go along with one blocked shot.

On the night, the Panthers recorded nine blocked shots, 17 assists and 33 total rebounds.

Sophomore Adam Guthrie scored eight points to go with eight rebounds and what is believed to be a career high with six blocked shots.

Senior Bryson Osborne scored seven points and contributed two rebounds, four assists and two steals.

Senior Austin Boedeker scored five points and spent most of the game guarding the Frontier Athletic Conference Player of the Year, junior Tate Davis, who scored nine points for the Indians.

Boedeker had two rebounds and one blocked shot.

Senior Brady Armstrong scored four points and had two rebounds, four assists and one steal.

Hillsboro senior Steven Kibler and junior Brayden Hunter shared the team lead in scoring, each with 11 points.

Hunter led Hillsboro with three three-point field goals.

Hillsboro shot well from behind the three-point line, making 7 of 18 for 39 percent.

Freshman Jack Howland scored seven to complete the scoring for the Indians.

After a bit of a slow start by both teams, Osborne hit the first basket of the game at the 5:24 mark of the first quarter.

Howland hit two throws from the line and Davis hit a three to give the Indians a 5-2 lead midway through the first eight minutes of play.

Osborne scored again and May hit his first basket of the game to put the Panthers back into the lead, 6-5, with 2:37 remaining in the opening frame.

Miami Trace would not relinquish the lead the rest of the way.

Guess and Guthrie scored again and Howland made a free throw to set the score at 10-6, in favor of Miami Trace after one.

The Panthers were able to put a little distance between themselves and the Indians in the second quarter.

Miami Trace led by as many as 14 points in the quarter before taking a 26-14 lead into the locker room.

Guess ignited the crowd with a slam dunk prior to a three-point field goal by Boedeker and a basket from May late in the quarter.

After scoring the last bucket of the first half, May hit a three-point shot to begin the third quarter.

Down 15, things could have gone south for Hillsboro, but the Indians had plenty of fight left, as the Panthers would soon see.

Hillsboro clawed its way back into the game with two threes by Hunter and one each from Kibler and Howland.

Howland’s three made it just a four-point game, 31-27 midway through the third period.

Guess quickly answered, however, with a three and May got an offensive rebound and put-back to give the Panthers a 36-27 lead.

Miami Trace took a 37-29 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Panthers saved their best for last, outscoring the Indians, 22-11 in the fourth quarter.

May carried the bulk of the scoring load in the fourth quarter, with nine points, after scoring two, four and five points, respectively, in the first three quarters.

Hillsboro came within eight points of Miami Trace in the fourth quarter. As time slipped away, the Panthers were able to push the lead and the final margin of victory to 19 points, 59-40.

Ben Ackley quickly pointed out in his post-game remarks that Tuesday’s win was the first tournament victory for the Panthers in his three seasons as Miami Trace’s head coach.

“It’s a big win for our kids,” Ackley said. “It’s definitely a monkey off our back. The first year it would have been an uphill battle. Last year we should have won (the first tournament game) but we didn’t take care of business. This is something else we can check off our list.”

The first individual Ackley spoke of was Coleden May, who had the best game of his varsity career.

“Coleden May tonight…the kid has sacrificed the two years he’s been here for the greater good of Miami Trace basketball,” Ackley said. “It’s very humbling and I’m very tickled for him to see him have a night like tonight.

“The scouting report says to leave him,” Ackley said. “Adam draws so much attention. Coleden got some real easy looks early and I thought it (made) a huge difference in his confidence; the basket got real big.”

Ackley then spoke about his final time out of the game, to get his seniors one final ovation in front of their home crowd.

“There’s a reason why when those guys were in the sixth grade there was 25 of them and tonight there’s five,” Ackley said. “It was no disrespect to anyone. I’ve got the utmost respect for (Hillsboro’s) staff and their kids.

“I know we’ve been worried about this match-up and what they present,” Ackley said. “(I have) nothing but respect for (Hillsboro).”

Ackley then spoke about what he saw from Hillsboro, strategy-wise.

“It looked to me like they were in a box-and-one on Adam,” Ackley said. “We knew they would show something. That’s been difficult, because we looked at every different scenario. We worked on zone offenses, man offenses; everyone is trying to take Adam away. They just lacked size underneath with their post player (Dorian Stewart) out.

“We knew they would do something different,” Ackley said. “We told our kids to be patient. We had to see it for a few minutes to see how we thought we could take advantage of it and I thought we did a pretty good job. Like I said, Coleden’s points were huge.

“Our team defense was good,” Ackley said. “Austin Boedeker is a phenomenal defender. Tate, anytime he crosses half-court, he’s within range. He’s very heady, uses pass fakes and ball fakes extremely well. He’s a coaches kid, and so is Jack. They just make everything extremely tough.”

“First of all, hats off to Miami Trace,” Hillsboro head coach Josh Howland said. “Really, they had a similar game plan as they had the last time we played them (back on Feb. 13). The biggest difference was they played with a high intensity on both ends of the floor. I thought they played, defensively, more like they wanted, especially in that first half.

“We couldn’t get a shot off, a clean look, from pretty much anywhere,” Howland said. “They’re definitely longer at every position. We deal with that a lot. Of course, they have the big guy (Guthrie) inside. In the first half I thought we contained him.

“Four (May) stepped up for them in a big way,” Howland said. “I wasn’t expecting that. He has a lot to be proud of himself about. It was a valiant effort from Trace, no question about it.

“We’re going to miss (Steven Kibler),” Howland said. “He was in there battling for those rebounds, especially in the second half. He didn’t have any quit in him. We cut (the deficit) down and they went down and hit a couple of shots and they have nice shooters. Steven definitely battled all the way through and he has all season.

“Brayden Hunter has a high ceiling,” Howland said. “He’s another one (of our players) who has improved by leaps and bounds.

“We have higher aspirations than just going five hundred and getting put out in the Sectional semis,” Howland said. “That’s not the end goal we wanted.”

In other Division II Sectional games Tuesday, Marietta defeated Gallia Academy, 60-29 and Fairfield Union beat Meigs, 64-54. Marietta will play Fairfield Union at Warren High School Saturday at 6:15 p.m.

Warren beat Waverly, 56-38 and Jackson defeated Vinton County, 48-28. Warren will play Jackson Friday at Logan High School at 6:15 p.m.

Unioto defeated Sheridan, 81-75 and Logan Elm beat Washington, 38-37 in overtime. Unioto will play Logan Elm Saturday at Miami Trace High School at 8 p.m.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

MT 10 16 11 22 — 59

H 6 8 15 11 — 40

MIAMI TRACE — Ben Mathews 0-0-0; Trey Robinette 0-0-0; Grant Guess 6 (1)-0-15; Coleden May 8 (1)-1-20; Julian Baker 0-0-0; Connor Napier 0-0-0; Brady Armstrong 0 (1)-1-4; Avery Bennett 0-0-0; Bryson Yeoman 0-0-0; Austin Boedeker 0 (1)-2-5; Adam Guthrie 4-0-8; Bryson Osborne 3-1-7. TOTALS — 21 (4)-5-59. Free throw shooting: 5 of 14 for 38 percent. Three-point field goals: Guess, May, Armstrong, Boedeker. Field goal shooting: 25 of 46 for 54 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 4 of 15 for 27 percent. Rebounds: 33 (12 offensive). Turnovers: 9. Assists: 17. Steals: 4. Blocked shots: 9. Fouls: 17.

HILLSBORO — Mason Dumpert 0-0-0; Tate Davis 2 (1)-2-9; Brayden Hunter 1 (3)-0-11; Steven Kibler 2 (2)-1-11; Nic Burns 0-2-2; Jack Howland 0 (1)-4-7; Lucas Holland 0-0-0; Walker Pence 0-0-0; Brady Juillerat 0-0-0. TOTALS — 5 (7)-9-40. Free throw shooting: 9 of 17 for 53 percent. Three-point field goals: Hunter, 3; Kibler, 2; Howland, Davis. Field goal shooting: 12 of 43 for 28 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 7 of 18 for 39 percent. Offensive rebounds: 10. Turnovers: 8.