Cade Patterson’s 3-pointer prompted a Pekin timeout early in the third quarter as five straight Lone Tree points cut the Panther lead to 26-14. 

Pekin responded with a 24-2 run and went on to a 60-29 win over the Lions on Monday. 

The Lions outscored Pekin 13-10 with both teams emptying the benches in the fourth quarter. Jack Buser hit a pair of 3-pointers and led the Lions with six points.

Lone Tree fell behind 12-0 before Patterson ended the nearly seven-minute scoring drought. 

Drew Gauley’s 3-pointer cut the lead to 19-9 in the second quarter, but the Panthers scored the last seven points of the half. 

Tyler Bell scored four of Lone Tree’s seven points in the third quarter before leaving the game with an injury. 

The Lions held Pekin to just three field goals in the second quarter, but turnovers fueled the third-quarter run that put the game out of reach. 

The schedule got tougher for Lone Tree on Tuesday with conference leader Winfield-Mt. Union visiting, followed by a trip to second-place Mediapolis on Friday. 

“I want to see a better effort,” Lone Tree coach Tom Squiers said. “I don’t think we played hard tonight. We’ve only won three games, you can’t just expect to show up and win. I just don’t think that we gave the kind of effort that we needed to give to win this game tonight.” 

GAME STATS 

Lone Tree 4 5 7 13 – 29

Pekin 16 10 24 10 – 60

LONE TREE SCORING: Jack Buser 6, Cade Patterson 5, Tyler Bell 4, Adam Knock 4, Drew Gauley 3, Mitchell Koedam 3, Matt Fellows 2, Tyce Alt 2.