All the ingredients have been there, ripening and getting better.

For Plains Horseman basketball coach Tyrel Allen and crew it was just a matter of time for the first fruits of a new crop to come in. And the crop shows signs of producing good stuff for the future.

After an 0-15 2021-22 season in which the Horsemen featured a bevy of talented but young players and a year before that when the only two wins among the Covid craziness were against Noxon, Plains put a “W” in the books with a convincing 69-47 win over the Superior Bobcats Saturday afternoon at the Hamilton Tip-off tournament as the 2022-23 season got underway.

The Plains Trotters ladies teams were also looking for some season opening magic but dropped a pair of games in Hamilton, falling 47-22 to the St. Regis Lady Tigers to open the tourney Friday morning, then getting hammered 47-10 by a very promising Superior Lady Bobcats team Saturday, 47-10.

The Horsemen, meanwhile, actually had to wait a day into the tournament before securing the highly sought, drought-ending win. Plains boys opened their tourney action with a 60-41 loss to defending 14C champion St. Regis Friday morning.

But something was different Saturday.

This time, for the first game in a long time, the shots were falling and the Horsemen’s aggressive defense was coming together.

Plains raced out to a 23-12 lead at the end of the first quarter and never trailed again as they matched every Superior run at the lead.

The two teams played even up in the second quarter, which ended with the Horsemen holding a 35-24 halftime lead.

And unlike previous games in previous times, this group of Horsemen kept the pedal to the metal, outscoring Superior 17-10 in quarter number three to boost their advantage to 52-34 heading into the final eight minutes of play.

Victory, it seemed was in sight and the Horsemen secured that possibility with scrappy play down the stretch to lock down their first win of the year.

The day earlier they had battled the defending champ Tigers all the way in a game St. Regis led from start to finish. But they did not ease up in the final minutes as if to say this year is going to be different.

That came after St. Regis blew out to a 22-2 first quarter lead but battled the Horsemen pretty much even most of the rest of the way.

Next up for the Plains boys and girls are a pair of road games December 13th against Hot Springs.

In other scores from the Hamilton Tip-off tournament, the Noxon boys and girls basketball teams went a combined 1-3 this past weekend, with the girls beating the Lincoln Lady Lynx 27-25 in a nail-biter Friday afternoon.

They did not fare much better Saturday in their second game of the tourney, falling 46-11 to the Philipsburg Lady Propectors.

As for the boys, they were beaten 61-25 by the Lynx Friday, then dropped a Saturday game to Philipsburg 59-39.

Next up for both boys and girls teams is a road trip to Clark Fork, Idaho for a pair of games this weekend.