Making their first ever state tournament appearance on Thursday morning, Gordon-Rushville saw their historic season end with a 52-20 loss to top seeded Freeman in the quarterfinals of Class C2.
Freeman’s Carter Ruse dropped 11 first quarter points on his way to a game high 18 as the Falcons built an 18-4 lead through 8-minutes. Gordon-Rushville’s two first quarter baskets came from Logan Slama and Jace Nelson.
The Mustangs did a better job of hanging around in the 2nd quarter behind 5 more points from Slama, another layup from Nelson and Carter Anderson’s running floater in the middle of the lane but trailed 28-13 at the break.
The second half got away from the 8th seed of the tournament as they only scored 7 points over the final 16 minutes of play. Keenan Schwarting found the rim off of a backdoor cut and Nelson added his final basket of the game with G-R trailing 43-17 heading to the final period.
A Slama 3 was the only offense in the 4th.
Slama finished with a team high 10 points. Nelson added 6 and Anderson and Schwarting had 2 each.
Gordon-Rushville will finish the season at 17-5 while Freeman advances to Friday’s semifinals against the winner of Hartington Cedar Catholic and Elkhorn Valley.