HANOVER, Kan. - The Hanover basketball teams heralded the start of the holiday season with two lopsided wins at home over Twin Valley League foes Washington County on Friday night: the Wildcat girls stayed unbeaten on a milestone night for one of their seniors, while the Hanover boys earned their first win of the year in dominant fashion.  

 

GIRLS BASKETBALL: Hanover (4-0) defeats Washington County (4-1) 64-26 

In a matchup of early season unbeatens, reigning Class 1A state champions Hanover faced off with league foe Washington County, which had outscored its opponents by an average of better than 25 points per game in their four wins. The Tigers scored the game’s first three points, but the Wildcats countered with the next six, and never looked back after that.  

Jesse Hoover scored the final three points of the first quarter and the first three points of the second quarter for the Tigers, but her team did not score again for the rest of the period: thanks to excellent defense and transition offense, Hanover scored the final 16 points of the first half to grab a 41-14 halftime lead, and more than made that hold up in the second half.  

As she has been so many times, Anna Jueneman was the defensive catalyst and the offensive standard-bearer for the Wildcats on a historic night for the Hanover senior. She entered the night needing only four points to reach 1,000 for her career and hit that mark midway through the first quarter before exploding for 11 more in the second quarter. She finished with a game-high total of 22 as she joined an elite crew of only about a half dozen Hanover girls to surpass 1,000 career points. 

Drew Bruna added in 11 points for the Wildcats and Ally Scheele nailed four threes to score 12. Hoover and Addy Goeckel tied for the team lead with ten points each for the Tigers.  

 

BOYS BASKETBALL: Hanover (1-3) defeats Washington County (2-3) 81-33 

Hanover came into this game at 0-3, but both coaching staffs knew full well how challenging of a schedule the Wildcats had endured to that point. The question then became: would those early season challenges make the Wildcats weary, or battle-tested? 

It became clear early on that the latter option was the correct one. The teams traded blows early and Hanover’s lead after one quarter was ten, but the Wildcats then dropped 32 points in the second quarter to gain control, and then outscored the Tigers 19-6 in the third quarter to put the game beyond reach.  

Defensive intensity was part of the Tigers’ gameplan, but it was the Wildcats who took better advantage of defensive stops, converting them into transition buckets on offense all night long. After winning the two matchups last season by a combined total of eight points, Hanover cruised to victory in their final game in 2024, winning their eighth straight game in the all-time series. 

Ten different Wildcats scored in the win, led by a 23-point outburst from Cooper Bruna. Kadrick Cohorst and Braylon Meyn had strong all-around games and combined to score 24 points, while Tanner Bruna had a nice impact off the bench with nine points. Octavien Cardenas led the Tigers with ten points, all in the first half.  

 

UP NEXT: Washington County @ Axtell, January 3 

                 Hanover Boys vs. Frankfort, January 3