Sometimes the basketball gods foil your best laid plans.

“We came in expecting a close game,” said Jake Reader. Yet the sophomore foreword and his Longhorns teammates left Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, with a more than convincing 62-33 win on Friday night. The devastation was so complete, Kimball never felt threatened. They led from one minute into the game, when Mike Daum sank a three pointer from the baseline, to the moment Nolan Adrian drained a jumper with only a few seconds left on the clock.

“We just took control,” Jeff Greenwood observed. “Tonight we clicked on a lot of cylinders.”

Almost all of them, in fact. After Daum’s easy three, Brent Bussinger fed Reader, who leaned into the Hornets defending the post and rolled it in. Moments later the big sophomore pirouetted around two Pine Bluffs players to add another lay up. Then a Dalton Lockwood steal led to another Daum score. At the end of one, Kimball already held a commanding 19-6 advantage.

“Our defense took them out of what they do well,” said head coach Bruce Tjosvold, referring to the Hornets’ usually deft outside shooting game.

Kimball countered with a pressing 1-3-1, rarely allowing the hosts an unguarded shot.

On the offensive side, the Longhorns’ aggressive play caused havoc. Two minutes into the second period, Pine Bluffs junior forward Taylor Fornstrom was already in foul trouble. As the half wound down, Caleb Reuter picked the Hornets’ pocket on an inbound under the basket and draped it in, giving Kimball a 31-12 lead.

When the buzzer sounded it was 33-15 and on the verge of out of control.

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Tjosvold said.

Pine Bluffs has a reputation for playing out hard, physical scripts in their super-heated gym. And they emerged from the locker room with confidence—Harley Dalton knocking down a three despite face-to-face pressure from Greenwood.

But this was Kimball’s—and more specifically Reader’s—game. The sophomore pounded the baseline, executing a perfect reverse lay up with 6:33 to go in the third, restoring a 16 point gap.

Less than a minute later Greenwood sank two from the stripe, Reader forced in an offensive rebound and Daum completed a nifty fingertip roll. Before the period ended, Lockwood hit a wide open three, thanks to an assist from Greenwood.

It was 51-24 going into the final frame. The rest of the game was merely cruise control.

While Reader racked up 25 points at the spear point of an astounding offensive display, Lockwood credited the team’s off the ball effort.

“It’s nice to get an early lead, but you have to keep it,” he said. “We play a pretty good defense and it wins games.”

The Longhorns have a difficult weekend ahead of them, with games against Bridgeport at home and Sidney on the road.