Taryn Farnan hit 10 for Northeast Nodaway’s girls, but the shorthanded Bluejay girls, playing without Claudia Wiederholt or Holly Redden, fell short 28-26 to CFX Tuesday.
Farnan also guarded Ryan Hopkins, who had hurt Northeast last time. Farnan limited Hopkins to five points, but they didn’t have an answer to Aleesha Ball, who scored 23 out of CFX’s 28 points Tuesday night. She was either sealing at will inside on whoever was guarding her or driving to the basket.
The Bluejays made a lot of mistakes, but did some things better than they did in their first meeting with CFX and they played through the mistakes well enough to give themselves a chance to win at the end. They did a better job of boxing out this time; the return of Kristan Judd for a month now has really helped Northeast’s front line, which has done a good job of cleaning up the missed boxouts that hurt them earlier in the year. And they did better defensively, allowing only 28 CFX points after giving up 40 in the first meeting between the two teams. Ballhandling was the area most in need of improvement as Northeast dribbled into the CFX traps too much and committed eight traveling violations for the game. Hacking and fouling was another problem for Northeast; they allowed CFX to get into the double bonus in the first half.
The two teams played to a 6-6 tie in the first half. Dallis Coffelt scored four of Northeast’s six points in the period with a putback and two free throws. Taryn Farnan added another putback, scooping it over a defender.
The second quarter was the one in which the hacking and fouling really cost Northeast; it hurt their depth and forced other players to play with foul trouble. They fell behind by as much as 19-11 before two Kristan Judd free throws made it 19-13 at the break. Kerrigan Adwell had the lone field goal in the period and K while Dallis Coffelt, Taryn Farnan, and Kaysie Wiederholt each had a free throw.
Northeast used a strong quarter to get back into the game. Taryn Farnan scored off a pair of drives, one of which resulted in a 3-point play for five points in the period. Jill Spire had the other two points for Northeast, driving against three defenders for a layup. Northeast led 22-21 at one point before Ball hit at the buzzer for CFX to make it 23-22 going into the fourth.
The fourth quarter and the entire game was a typical moment for whenever two strong defensive squads go at it – little scoring and lots of forced errors on both sides. The score was stuck at 23-22 for the first 5:40 until Kaysie Wiederholt got loose against the press and got a pass from Brianna Riley with 2:20 left for a layup. Northeast had been dribbling into the traps on the side instead of working it to the middle or reversing the ball from side to side, but the Bluejays picked the right time to run a textbook pressbreak by working the ball to the middle and starting a fast break.
But CFX answered right back with a 3-point play from Ball to make it 26-24 and then consecutive traveling calls burned up another two possessions for Northeast. Finally, Dallis Coffelt got two good looks, but missed them both and there was a tieup with 3.3 seconds left and the possession arrow was pointing to CFX and Northeast had to foul. Ryan Hopkins hit both free throws to make it 28-24 and Kristan Judd hit a jumper at the buzzer.
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