The North Kansas City Hornets men's basketball team is on fire and showing no signs of cooling down. The Hornets extended their win streak to 12 in Wednesday's game against Park Hill winning 70-59, sweeping the season series against the Trojans. Behind their fast paced offense and relentless full court press the Hornets have continued to prove doubters wrong and turn around their season after a rough 3-3 start, now sitting at 17-4 going into Friday's match up against bitter rival Oak Park, who is on a 20 game win streak of their own and ranked #1 in the state. 
    Junior forward Jake Willmann gives credit to the coaches and the teams willingness to get better as a unit rather than individually.
    "We're pretty hot right now, all of our guys are scoring, it could be anyone's night and that's really hard to guard. Also the overall success of our on ball defense has really shook up some really good teams like Rockhurst. It really attributes to our coaches and our willingness to get better as a team, putting our selfishness aside and that's why we've been winning."
    Friday night North Kansas City will be visited by the Oak Park Northmen in Hy-Vee's game of the week, in a crucial conference game for both teams ahead of the post season. In their meeting earlier this season the Hornets held a 16 point lead early in the game but came up short in the end, losing 74-64. Northtown is looking for a different result this time around, with home court advantage and fired up crowd, senior guard Kam Tate was asked about the pressures of this game.
    "It's no pressure, I don't think this is the time to get nervous. We're on a win streak of our own but we're still underdogs, that's just how it is, we have to be ready for war."
    
    Story by Tommy Ruffin