Saturday, the WACO Warrior boys basketball team saw their season end one game shy of the state tournament in Des Moines, dropping the substate final to Alburnett 60-54 in overtime.

WACO had an early lead at 7-5 but the Pirates got hot the rest of the first half and locked down the interior defensively to build a 29-20 lead at the half. Out of the locker room, Alburnett extended that lead to 40-23. Following a WACO time out the Warriors went crazy, scoring 13 in a row to pull within 40-36 and leave things tight down the stretch. WACO got their first lead since the fourth quarter in the game’s final three minutes on a steal and finish from Colton Horak. With the game tied at 47 with just over a minute left the Warriors opted to hold for the final shot. A deflected pass left them with the ball out of bounds and just a second and a half on the clock. The ball came in to Nik Coble, and his elbow jumper was no good, sending the game to overtime. The extra frame was controlled by Alburnett who outscored WACO 13-7, including going seven of eight down the stretch from the line. The Warriors played overtime without Colton Horak and Drew Kissell who had both fouled out. After the game, head coach Paul Kissell talked about his team’s effort. “This has been a great week for Warrior basketball, and I just reminded the guys of that. If we continue with the effort, if we continue getting stops we’ll make a run. We jumped a few passes, a few dribbles, and Colton Horak was our catalyst there. We just had to stay the course. We made our run, tied it, actually took the lead at one point. We had the ball at the end, final seconds, ran a set play, went out of bounds. We lobbed it up to Nik (Coble). You go up to your 6’5″ kid and hope something happens in that last second. He had a shot, it didn’t go.”

Horak led the Warriors with 17 points, Coble put up a double double 15 points and 13 rebounds. Gabe Reichenbach added 12. With the loss, WACO finishes their season at 17-5, while Alburnett improves to 18-5 and advances to the state tournament for the first time in school history.