Tom Washburn, one of our do-it-all scorekeepers and reporters filed an early report from today's holiday high school basketball games at the In-N-Out Burger Invitational in Allen.
Duncanville and Frisco Heritage advanced to the semifinal round.
Duncanville 56 Highland Park 46
The Duncanville defense packed the paint and forced Highland Park to shoot from outside en route to a convincing win over the tenth-ranked 4A team in the state.
Matt McQuaid led Duncanville (10-5) with a game-high 16. Duncanville grabbed a 7-6 lead less than a minute into the game and never trailed as it consistently pounded the ball in close.
In contrast, Highland Park (14-3) launched a large number of three's. Its first three scores were treys, and it hit seven for the game. Evan Beucler led Highland Park with 12 points, all on threes.
DJ Wallace and Omar Sherman scored in double figures for Duncanville.
Frisco Heritage 69 Richardson 55
In the other quarterfinal on Friday morning, Frisco Heritage (11-1), ranked No. 12 in the state among 4A schools used a 9-2 run late in the third quarter to pull away from a scrappy Richardson team (5-7).
Heritage led by 25-23 at the half, and only by one at 3:15 in the third before its run.
Jordan Corbitt led Heritage with a game-high 17, scoring 13 in the second half. Gabe Fowler and Jordan Box added 14 and 11, respectively.
Heritage and Duncanville square off in Friday night's second semifinal at 8:30. The first semi at 7:00 features 12-1 Flower Mound Marcus against John Paul II, the state's third-ranked large private school.