Belton slips away with victory on Boys Senior Night

​by Bill Althaus

Grain Valley High School seniors Aaron Barr and Tucker Hughes had a lot of success from downtown on Senior Night, but the Eagles let an early 10-point lead slip away as the visiting Belton Pirates used a 21-point fourth quarter to claim a 57-53 victory.

Barr hit five 3-pointers and finished with 15 points while Hughes added three 3-pointers and nine points as the Eagles fell to 11-8 and 9-1, losing their first conference game of the season.

Much of Belton's defensive effort targeted Eli Herbert, who is second in the Metro Area with a 23-points-per-game average. He finished with nine hard-fought points.

Any time the junior guard had the ball, there were two Pirates shadowing his every move. With his basketball savvy and skill, Herbert was able to dish the ball off to his teammates as the Eagles held a 53-52 lead with 2:05 left in the game.

Belton scored its final five points on a Alek Colombo steal at :36, which resulted in a lay up. He then added two free throws and Jayce Maiden hit a free throw to seal the victory.

"We were all super charged up for tonight's game," Hughes said. "Tuesday night I hit three 3-pointers and I hit three again tonight. As a senior, I wanted to make a contribution tonight, and we gave it all we had, and just came up four points short."

Belton led 13-11 after one quarter, but the Eagles led 28-18 at halftime.

Grain Valley managed to take a 39-36 lead into the final eight minutes of play before the Pirates hit four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and were seven-of-eight from the line.

"You always want to see your seniors get a win on Senior Night, but that didn't happen tonight. We're going to watch some film and correct some things and we'll be ready for our next game," said coach Andy Herbert, Eli's father. 

"Eli's frustrated, and he is so unselfish, so while he struggled to score, he made sure his teammates got the ball so they could have a scoring opportunity.

"This is Tucker's second big game with three 3-pointers and Aaron had another nice game. They're tough kids who will do anything they can to help us win."

Cooper Shrum led the Pirates with 16 points while Caleb Campbell added 12.