Aurora basketball defeats Hollister, Lady Houn's drop games to Mt. Vernon and Webb City

The Aurora High School boys’ basketball team hosted and defeated Hollister on Thursday, Feb. 26, 63-60.
 
The Houn' Dawgs opened the week by traveling to Mt. Vernon but fell to the Mt'neers, 84-54 on Wednesday, Feb. 25.
 
Mt. Vernon led 22-19 after the first quarter and 36-29 at the half. It was a close scoring affair in the third quarter, as the Mt'neers outscored Aurora 26-20 to increase their lead to 62-49. In the final quarter of play, Aurora had difficulty scoring points, as the Houn' Dawgs were held to just five points, while Mt. Vernon erupted for 22 points to put the game away.
 
Thomas Lara led with 16 points, Aidan Ross added 14 points, and Creed Kloss ended the game with 10 points.
 
“Our guys played hard tonight, there’s no questioning the effort,” said head coach Carson Cavalier. “We were heavily out-rebounded, and we can’t afford to give up that many second-chance points, especially when it leads to foul trouble on our end.”
 
Aurora ends their regular season with an 8-18 record and were scheduled to play at Hollister last night against Hollister in an opening round game of the Class 4, District 11 tournament. The tournament will conclude on Saturday.
 
Girls basketball
 
The Lady Houn's traveled to Mt. Vernon on Thursday but lost to the Lady Mt'neers 44-33.
 
Aurora led 13-12 after the first quarter but Mt. Vernon answered by outscoring Aurora 15-7 in the second quarter. The Lady Mt'neers led 27-20 at halftime. Mt. Vernon increased, that lead to 34-24 by the end of the third quarter and added another 10 points in the fourth quarter to close out the win.
 
Aurora traveled to Webb City on Tuesday, Feb. 24 but lost to the Lady Cardinals 69-38.
 
The Lady Houn's ended their regular season with a record of 11-13 and were scheduled to play against Clever in an opening round game of the Class 4, District 11 Tournament in Hollister on Monday night. The tournament is scheduled to run through Friday.