Robert Moore puts up his first two points of the night in the Greyhounds 45-33 win over Alamo Heights last Friday night.  Moore finished with a game-high 18 points as the Greyhounds swept the Mules in Districet 27-4A play. Photo by Marvin Pfeiffer

The Boerne Greyhounds can nail down an outright district basketball championship with wins this week against Kennedy and Kerrville Tivy.

The Hounds hosted Kennedy Tuesday night after the View had gone to press and will hit the road for Kerrville Friday night, with the game tipping off at 7 p.m. The Hounds wrap up their district schedule at home against Fredericksburg Feb. 12.

The Hounds put themselves in position to claim the title with a pair of road wins last week over Memorial and Alamo Heights. Boerne entered the week with a 7-0 district record and an overall mark of 27-4. Heights and Kerrville Tivy were tied for second place with 5-2 district records. Defending district champion Fredericksburg fell to third place at 4-3. Kennedy was in fifth place at 1-7 and Memorial was last at 0-7.

The Hounds disposed of Memorial Jan. 29 at Edgewood gym, taking the final game of the series 67-45. The Minutemen went zone defense in a bid to limit possessions and stay in striking position, but they could not hold down Boerne power forward Robert Moore, who led the game with 21 points. Boerne center Chuck Thornally and shooting guard Daniel Rogers joined Moore in double figures with 16 and 11 points, respectively, with eight Hounds in all notching points.

Boerne Coach Stan Leech had predicted opponents would lean more on zone defenses after Fredericksburg employed a zone in a close loss.

The Mules went the same route Friday night at Heights, but came up short 45-33.

“It wasn’t like the game we played them before,” Leech said. “There weren’t going to be many possessions so you’ve got to be patient. We had our own troubles scoring, too. Of course, when we had the lead there wasn’t any reason to shoot ourselves out of it. They played much more conservative, too.”

In a repeat of the first game between the two rivals, Boerne guards Sterling Bennett and Hunter Simmons held Mules’ star guard Jude Dworaczyk to an anemic seven points, with all seven coming late in the fourth quarter after the game had been decided. As a team, Boerne limited Heights to 13 points through three quarters. The Mules also did a good job denying Moore early, but Rogers stepped up with 13 points and forward Zach Burdick added eight in his first game back since twisting an ankle against Tivy. With the game slipping away, the Mules were finally forced to abandon their zone defense and play man-to-man. Free to roam, Moore made the Mules pay with 18 late points.

“When they went man-to-man we were able to find Robert a lot,” Leech said. “Once they had to play us straight up he was able to get loose. We anticipated Heights would go zone the second game, even before we played Fredericksburg. The only way we won’t be zoned here on out is if a team thinks they’re better than us.”

Given their record, it’s not likely many teams will have the confidence to play the Hounds mano a mano any time soon.