Hungry to get back in the win column coming off the first loss of the season the #4 Highland Men's basketball team was eager to get Conference play rolling and did so on Saturday hosting Labette.
It wasn't easy and it took multiple comebacks including coming back from being down 10 but the Scotties battled to an electric 72-70 victory over Labette to open KJCCC action 1-0.

The win marks the sixth straight over Labette and the 28^th for Highland the series that has featured 53 games. With the win Highland improves to 19-1 on the season and 1-0 in KJCCC.

Highland found themselves down 1-0 before the ball was even tipped as the Scotties were given a technical foul for dunking during pregame warmups and Labette made the free throw. Labette used that to help spark a solid start and worked to an 11-2 lead over the first three minutes of the contest. The Scotties cut that lead to one on a Luiz Machado Jr. three-pointer then took their first lead after a Rashon Johnson layup with 13:08 left the first half giving Highland the 15-14 advantage. Highland continued to hold the lead until the 4:31 mark when the game was knotted up at 28-28 and Labette would out score the Scotties the rest of the first half to lead 38-34 at intermission.

A 7-0 spurt to open the second half gave control of the game back to Highland until Labette managed to tie the game once more this time at 41-41 and the took the lead and they held it until a Taiveyhon Mason three-pointer with 3:47 remaining when Highland went up 63-62. It remained tight the rest of the way and the Scotties up by one-point had Rashon Johnson going to the free throw line with 39.1 seconds left and he made a pair of free throws to push the lead to three-points. After a pair of missed free throws by the Scotties Labette had the ball with nine seconds left with a 70-67 Highland lead and on the inbound out of the timeout Jaquan Daniels stole the ball and had an exclamation point dunk to seal the game as Labette hit a three in the final seconds to make it ultimately a two-point final score difference.

Scotties shot 41.8% in the win while Labette shot 43.8% from the floor but had 19 turnovers, while Highland had 12 turnovers. Highland won a tight rebounding battle (+3) and had 17 assists on 28 made field goals.

A quartet of double figure scorers led Highland as Tristen Hull had his second straight and fourth overall double-double scoring a game high 16 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, while adding three steals. Mason chipped in 14 points, five rebounds and four assists, while Machado tallied 12 points. Johnson scored 11 points on 4-8 shooting in the win.

UP NEXT
Conference play continues on Monday, January 28^th as Highland travels to Johnson County for a rescheduled contest it will be the Scotties second Conference matchup in seven day span that started with Saturday's contest versus Labette. The Men's contest at Johnson County will pit the #4 Scotties versus the #8 Cavaliers and is set to tip at 7:30pm. (Game will be live streamed on Scottie Sports Network – watch live)