The New Franklin Bulldogs moved to 10-1 on the season with an 82-50 blowout win over seventh-seeded Pilot Grove in the opening round of the New Franklin Tournament on Tuesday.

New Franklin, seeded second, will now face sixth-seeded Community at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in the new gym. The Trojans upset third-seeded Sweet Springs 54-40 Wednesday night on the solid shooting of Gavin Allen, who scored a game-high 22 points.

A win Thursday would likely pit New Franklin against top-seeded and back-to-back defending champions Westran on Saturday afternoon for a rematch of last year’s championship game. The two teams last met in the Glasgow Tournament semifinals on November 30. Westran tied the game in the final seconds of regulation and went on to win 63-59 in overtime on the way to a tournament title.

Westran improved to 13-0 Tuesday with a 77-52 win over eighth-seeded Prairie Home/Bunceton on a strong performance by 6’7 forward Langden Kitchen, who posted a heretofore tournament-high 32 points.

But before such a rematch could occur, the Bulldogs must get past Community, and Westran must defeat Sturgeon, the fifth seed, on Thursday night.

In Tuesday’s opener, New Franklin’s high-powered offense scored 15 straight points in the opening 3:15 on the way to taking a 23-7 lead after eight minutes. That lead expanded to 49-25 at halftime. But Bulldogs’ coach Jim Schlotzhauer said despite the fast start, he was unhappy with his team’s defense that allowed Pilot Grove to score 18 second-quarter points.

“Defensively, I didn’t feel like we played well at all,” Schlotzhauer said. “Pilot Grove settled in after the first quarter and put up a pretty good amount of points in the last three quarters. We will certainly be concentrating on our rebounding, positioning, and rotations throughout this week.”

Specifically, on defense, New Franklin struggled to contain Pilot Grove sophomore Beau Walker, who scored a game-high 26 points. Despite the scoring surge, however, the Tigers were not able to find a way back into the game in which New Franklin held a 30-point deficit over the final 10 minutes of the game.

New Franklin senior Clayton Wilmsmeyer paced four Bulldogs in double figures with 16 points. Junior Tanner Bishop finished with 14, followed by senior Owen Armentrout with 12 and junior Connor Wilmsmeyer with 11. New Franklin finished the night with 10 players in the scorebook.

“For our first game back from a long two-week break, I was pretty pleased with our effort,” Schlotzhauer said. “The boys played pretty well offensively by taking good shots and moving the ball. We missed a lot of easy looks that we usually make but rebounded a lot of our own misses for putbacks.”

New Franklin is now a game away from playing for the tournament championship. Should the Bulldogs and Westran make the finals, it would mark a rematch from last year’s title game which the Hornets won 60-46. The last time New Franklin won its own tournament was in 2020, when the team went 27-2 overall with a trip to the state sectionals.

Pilot Grove, now 3-6 overall, will take on third-seeded Sweet Springs at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the old gym. The winner will play for the consolation trophy at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. The loser will play for seventh place at noon on Saturday. Both games will be played in the old gym.