Up to Denton’s final possession of Tuesday night’s district opener against Guyer, forward Fred Hunter was 7-of-8 from beyond the arc.

DRC/Gary Payne

Guyer’s Tallon Condiff, left, is heckled by Denton fans during Tuesday’s game at Denton High School. The Wildcats won the District 5-4A opener for both teams, 57-56. Click here for more photos.

But his ninth 3-point attempt drew nothing but iron at the buzzer, and the Wildcats left Bronco Gymnasium with a district win, beating crosstown rival Denton 57-56.

Guyer head coach Nathan Moses said his plan coming out of a timeout with 7.8 seconds remaining was to keep the ball out of Hunter’s hands, but he had to settle for a double-clutch shot attempt from Hunter.

“All we were trying to do out there was not let him catch it,” Moses said. “He’s a great player. All we’re trying to do is keep the ball out of his hands. Everyone in the gym knew they’d try to get the ball in his hands.”

The Denton senior scored 16 points in the first half, going 4-for-5 from 3-point range, and had three 3s in the third quarter before being shut out by Guyer’s relentless defense in the fourth quarter.

“They switched from the man and went back to zone and that zone really caused us problems,” Denton head coach Harold Jackson said. “We weren’t able to get in our sets and execute, and they took advantage of some [bad] shots we took. They were able to limit us to one-and-out and get the rebound.”

Guyer (9-8, 1-0) had some brief early leads, but trailed for much of the second quarter and all of the third before entering the fourth quarter down 47-43, but Hunter was unable to keep up his hot shooting for the Broncos (6-10, 0-1).

The Wildcats’ key stretch in the game came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, when they went on a 9-2 run over the first four minutes to take their first lead since the beginning of the second quarter, after a Tyler Crosek bucket and Marc Plaza’s tip-in on a third-chance follow up of misses from Ryan Woodward and Walter Phillips.

It was Plaza’s only bucket of the game but it gave the Wildcats a brief three-point lead. Quinton Gary finished with 12 points. The win was especially big for him and Plaza, as they started their careers as Broncos.

“Two of our starters started high school over here,” Moses said. “That’s well-documented. They started playing their high school careers in this gym. I don’t know that me and you can understand what that feels like to come back to your old high school gym and have to play as the opponent.”

That sequence was followed by perhaps the most important play of the night when Desmond Taylor, who finished with 10 points, was fouled after dropping in a layup with the potential for a 3-point play to tie the game with 3:46 remaining. He made the foul shot, but it was waived off due to a Denton lane violation, which ended up being the difference in the game.

Taylor tied the game again with 1:26 left with a 3-pointer and six seconds later, Crosek was fouled going up for a layup and made one of two foul shots for the final points of the game before Hunter’s 3-pointer missed its mark after he actually hit one shortly after a Guyer foul that was called on the floor.

The Wildcats used their size advantage to out-rebound Denton 36-31 as the Broncos fell well short of their goal of grabbing 40 rebounds. Guyer had numerous second-chance points along with Plaza’s third-chance follow up.

“I thought we had to control the boards,” Jackson said. “I knew rebounding would be a high emphasis for us because we had to limit them to one-and-out. They did a tremendous job with their length and we were unable to out-rebound them.”

Phillips had 15 points through three quarters and went scoreless in the fourth, but had some key steals under Denton’s basket and a couple of big blocks in the fourth. Crosek had 12 of his team-high 19 in the second half, and another of Guyer’s big scorers, Tallon Condiff, was held to five, which Moses was fine with.

“We think we have seven or eight kids who can contribute,” Moses said. “We preach and preach to our boys that we want to be a team that can share the ball and the load. There won’t be one kid on the bus who thinks they’re more important than anyone else.”

ADAM BOEDEKER can be reached at 940-566-6872. His e-mail address is aboedeker@dentonrc.com .

Guyer 57, Denton 56

Guyer (9-8, 1-0) — Antonio Burton 4, Tyler Crosek 19, Quinton Gary 12, Tallon Condiff 5, Walter Phillips 15, Marc Plaza 2.

Denton (6-10, 0-1) — Joey Triana 7, Desmond Taylor 10, Gary Robinson 4, Spencer Stewart 6, Fred Hunter 25, Rodney Brown 2, Aaron Smiley 2.