Hamilton boys hoops rocks Lincoln, Hornets advance to state for the first time since 1981

(BLUE SPRINGS, MO) - The Penney High School boys basketball team achieved school history on Saturday. The Hornets knocked out 1-loss Lincoln, 51-35 in the Class 2 State Quarterfinals and now heads to the state semis for the first time since 1981.

Hamilton came in with a solid game plan and frustrated the Lincoln Cardinals throughout the game, especially in the second half.

"A great statement one of our assistant coaches has is the Mike Tyson statement. Everybody has a great plan until they get punched in the mouth," said Hamilton head coach Doug Burnett. "So we came out and just aggressively ball pressure them and made life hard on them. We showed the team lots of clips of teams like West Virginia that do elite ball pressure and get after it on defense. That can just carry us everywhere, offense is going to come and go, defense is all the time."

Hamilton senior Jacob Miller was a dominant force the entire game, slamming multiple dunks and swatting shots on defense, he led the team with 23 points.

"We're really just sticking to what we do. They didn't really have an answer for me inside, and we knew that they were going to pop out whenever I came to the corner," said Miller. "So we kind of just fed off the backdoor cuts and they didn't really know what to do."

Freshman Hudson Creekmore finished with 12 points for the Hornets, followed by sophomore Jared Cooley with 10.

"It feels very surreal, going to state in football and now this, I'm so happy we can be here again," said Cooley. "It's really a great experience playing in front of this crowd, they've been here through all of our games. I really appreciate the home environment we created here."

"We talked at the very start of the year, we said we are good enough to be a Final Four team. Obviously, you have Big Jake in the middle, but it's not just him," said Burnett. "We have a collection of players that are all good enough athletes, good enough players for us to be at the Final Four. We didn't magically become a Final Four team. You start becoming a Final Four team by the work that we put in in June."

Penney High improves to 23-8 on the season and will face Hayti in the Class 2 State Semifinals on Friday, March 13th at 6 pm in Columbia.