Monday night the Atlantic boys’ basketball team defeated Winterset 58-45 in round one of district playoff basketball at Atlantic High School. Atlantic hosted back-to-back doubleheader games between ADM and Harlan, and Winterset and Atlantic.

The first game of the night Adel-Desoto-Minburn defeated Harlan 65-51 moving the Tigers on to compete Thursday night against the winner of the Winterset-Atlantic game. The Trojans defeated the Huskies as they had already previously done this year in the season opener in November. Atlantic beat Winterset 83-59 in that game.

Thursday night Atlantic will host ADM at Atlantic High School at 7:00pm. Heading into the Monday night game against Harlan, ADM sat at a 11-10 record this season which sits fifth in the Raccoon River Conference. Meanwhile Atlantic sits comfortably with a 17-5 record heading into the district final game Thursday against ADM. Atlantic’s impressive record was good enough to finish second in the Hawkeye Ten Conference this season just a couple games behind Kuemper Catholic of Carroll.

The winner of the matchup between ADM and Atlantic Thursday night will move on from the district final game. Atlantic and ADM last competed in late February of the 2012-2013 season. The Trojans defeated the Tigers 63-43 in that February matchup. That same season Atlantic posted a 22-2 record and went on to be named the Hawkeye Ten Conference Champions led by then-senior Dalton Franken. This season the Trojans are led by Dalton’s younger brother, Garrett who has committed to play Division I basketball at the University of North Dakota next year.

Franken (Garrett) leads the Trojans with 24.2 points-per-game this season on his way to scoring 532 total points this year. The UND commit leads Class 3A and the Hawkeye Ten Conference in scoring as well by a 5.0 margin over the second leading scorer in the conference, Matt Dentlinger of Kuemper. Franken is also among some of the leading scorers in the state across all classes. According to Quik Stats Iowa Franken is the seventh leading scorer in the state of Iowa.

ADM is led by senior Tajen Ross who averages 22.7 points-per-game. Ross leads the Raccoon River Conference in scoring despite the Tigers’ mediocre season. Fellow senior Payton Conrad leads the same conference in assists with 103 while averaging 11.0 points-per-game through all 21 games.

Franken leads the Trojans in more than just one category. Franken also leads the Trojans in rebounding with 196 total thus far this season. Franken averages 8.9 rebounds per game, almost good enough to average a double-double each game.

Junior Scott Leonard isn’t far behind Franken with 180 total rebound this year. Leonard has 83 offensive rebounds which leads the Hawkeye Ten. Fellow junior Austin Alexander is currently third in the conference with 93 assists. Alexander also has 23 steals and 16 blocks this season while also only committing 36 turnovers which is among the upper-echelon within the conference.

Make sure you come out and support the Trojans Thursday night at Atlantic High School. The theme for the game is blackout. We hope to see you there!