Hamilton boys hoops cruise to victory in Class 2 Third Place Game; best finish in school history
(COLUMBIA, MO) - The Hamilton boys basketball team made it to be one of the final four teams standing in its class since 1981 this season. Now on Saturday, the Hornets concluded their season with the best finish in school history.
Hamilton dominated in a 50-25 victory over Clopton in the Class 2 Third Place Game.
The Hornets started the game on a 10-0 run and didn't look back from there. The team amazingly held the Clopton Hawks to just 5 first half points.
Senior and all-time leading scorer for Hamilton, senior Jacob Miller finished his accoladed high school career with a double-double in his farewell performance. Miller finished with 22 points, 12 rebounds and added 6 blocks. Freshman Hudson Creekmore added 10 points, sophomore Jared Cooley had 7 and senior Isac Bales-Rodriguez added 6 points in his final game.
"It's been very special in my time here. I've been lucky to be surrounded by great coaches and great players," said Miller. "Especially this year, I'm proud of how everybody stepped up, especially having a pretty young team. I'm proud of everybody for stepping up and finishing strong."
"It's been an amazing time. Coach Doug (Burnett) came in my sophomore year and he's been amazing," said Bales-Rodriguez. "He's always worked with us, he lives an hour and a half away, so he's driving an hour and a half to come to our school. "He stays late with us to get extra shots up. Our community is amazing. Our teammates are amazing. It's just been an overwhelming experience."
"The two of these seniors we have, they're very, very special kids. Their the reason I came to Penny, and it's that simple. Their dad called me and said, hey we have an opening. We want you to be here," said Hamilton head coach Doug Burnett. I made the two of them make made me a promise, I said, OK, I'm going to come, but you got to promise me that nobody's going to outwork you. The two of them said, you got it coach, nobody's going to outwork us, and they more than lived up to their end of the bargain. Our whole team this year has just been a special group of kids that just decided that love and trust and teamwork are what matters most in the world. Which is hard. It's a hard world that we live in now that everybody on the outside is telling them, look at me, look at me, look at me. Our locker room just chose to say, look at we, look at we, look at we."
Hamilton finishes the season with a 24-9 record.
