Welcoming Vienna’s Lady Eagles and Eagles to Bland Middle School (BMS) for parent night last Friday, Jacob Walton’s Bland Lady Bear and Nick Halbrook’s Bland Bear basketball teams looked for a sweep of their Maries County rivals.

Seeing the Lady Bears win both of their respective contests, their Bear counterparts looked to duplicate the feat against the visiting Eagles.

In spite of being edged 11-10 in the second half, Bland took the ‘B’ team game 25-16 over Vienna in a two-quarter contest.

‘A’ team action between the Eagles and Bears came down to the final moments before Bland was able to post a come-from-behind victory by a final score of 38-36 after trailing 30-25 entering the fourth quarter.

Jackson Prater paced Bland scoring nine of his game-high 14 points in the first half followed by Chase Sellers netting seven of his eight points in the second half.

Jaseton Rodgers and Owen Dobson both added five points apiece while Alden Zabel hit for four points.

Dakota Stockton rounded out the Bland scoring with a second-quarter bucket for two points.

Drew Crum led Vienna scoring a team-high 12 points followed by six points each from Tanner Hallahan and Zach Wansing.

Wansing netted all six of his points in the second half.

Weston Schwartze added five points all in the second half for Vienna while Alex Wieberg netted four first-half points.

Eli Messersmith rounded out the Eagle scoring with three points.

‘B’ team action saw Rodgers lead the Bears and all scorers with 14 points followed by Barrett Zumwalt with five points.

Kamdyn Struemph and Karsen Ridenhour added four and two points respectively rounding out the scoring for Bland’s ‘B’ Bears.

Coen Schwartze led Vienna with 11 points in ‘B’ team action followed by three points from Lukas Jenkins and two markers out of Josiah Massman.

During Bland’s 26-1 victory in the ‘B’ team girls game, Shae Buechter posted a game-high 14 points to go along with four points apiece out of Emilyn Lewis and Madelyn Lange.

Emrie Fredendall and Charleigh Elrod both added two points each for the Lady Bears.

Sadie Gorman hit a second-half free throw for one point getting the Lady Eagles on the board.

Action in the ‘A’ girls game saw Bland turn a 14-4 halftime lead into a 31-12 victory halfway into Bland’s parent night quadrupleheader.

Eight of Bland’s nine players found the scoring column led by Elrod and Lange with seven points apiece.

Fredendall added four points followed by the Lady Bear trio of Riley Gehlert, Lewis and Buechter with three points each.

Reagan Gehlert and Makenna Norris rounded out the scoring for Bland with two points apiece.

Abigail Otto scored all six of her points in the second half leading Vienna’s Lady Eagle ‘A’ team at Bland.

She was followed with two points each from Grace Barnhart, Emerson Jeremy and Nicole Rowden.

Bland will host the remainder of their annual girls basketball tournament the rest of the this week while their Bear counterparts will host Steelville tomorrow (Thursday) night at Belle High School with action beginning at 5 p.m.