Boys The Clifton-Clyde boys continued to dominate in their regular season games last week with wins over Concordia, Doniphan West and Washington County. The Eagles are 15-2 on the season.

The Hanover boys three-repeated as Blue Valley League basketball tournament champions on Saturday in Washington, closing out an undefeated year for the Bluejays. The team went 14-0 this year with a first round bye in the tourney. Saturday’s championship continues the winning tradition, where the Hanover boys have now gone undefeated for three years in a row. During that time, including byes, the Bluejays have a 46-0 record over the last three seasons.

The Hanover girls came into this year’s Blue Valley League basketball championship game on Saturday in Washington with an undefeated record and the aspiration to claim their first title since 2019. The Blue Jays had made it to the title game last year as the #1 seed, but fell to Valley Heights.

The Linn girls were the #2 seed in the Blue Valley League basketball tournament last week in Washington, and while they fell in the semi-final game to #3 seed Luckey, the Bulldogs dominated the third place game against Valley Heights. Linn took a 20-8 halftime lead and then continued to expand their lead, winning 46-24.

Local basketball teams started in on the second half of the season slowly, with a few games being postponed because of wintry weather on Tuesday. Washington County and Hanover were able to meet up on Jan. 23, however, and Hanover claimed both the boys and girls games. The Hanover boys had to come back from an eight-point deficit to win by two.

The Clifton-Clyde girls were up by as much as 14 points late in the second quarter, but when the Eagles’ leading scorers, Shea Wurtz and Sevy Wurtz, had to sit on the bench with three fouls each, Centralia was able to start chipping away at the lead.

Hanover’s third place finish in the TVL tournament came down to the wire, with a 3333 tie against Valley Heights with 1:37 left in the game. Over the next 25 seconds, Anna Jueneman was sent to the line twice and made three of four shots, to create a 36-33 lead for Hanover.

Hanover made it to the Twin Valley League championship game on Saturday against Axtell with wins over Valley Heights, 55-49, and Centralia, 50-45. Hanover was the #2 seed coming into the tournament.

Clifton-Clyde played three close games in the Twin Valley League tournament, finally finishing in third place on Saturday at Onaga. Clifton-Clyde was the #1 seed and had a first round bye, and then had a one point win over Frankfort on Wednesday, 52-51.

The Linn girls stayed in the upper bracket after a first round win over Troy last Monday. But they fell to Valley Heights on Thursday, 36-62, which sent them to the 5th/7th place bracket.