Northeast Nodaway's boys showed a glimmer of hope in their last two games. After an ugly 77-46 blowout loss to Elwood in which Coach Charlie Burch kicked over a chair and drew a technical foul in frustration at one point, the Bluejays were faced with a choice -- pack it in for the year or pick it up for the closing stretch. To their credit, they used a strong fourth quarter to erase a deficit and take CFX to overtime before losing 72-68. The Bluejays then showed that they could play with the best, playing evenly with DeKalb (one of the top teams in the conference) after falling behind 22-5 after one quarter before losing 89-68. The Tigers had thrown a scare into powerhouse Jefferson, only trailing by 17-16 before the three-time defending state champs hung 31 points in the second and 26 points in the third to dispose of them 82-57.
There were two players who were the key to Northeast's suddenly improved offensive output. Bryce Farnan carried the Bluejays against CFX, scoring 26 points in that period; he followed that with a 21-point effort Monday night. The other player was freshman point guard Alec Scroggie. When Scroggie started against CFX, the Bluejays were a totally different team out there; he provided the steady hand that Coach Burch had been looking for all year. "He's a level-headed kid who does everything you ask him to and who earned his playing time," said Burch after the DeKalb game. Scroggie did not start against DeKalb; however, he played for much of the game.
The Bluejays fell back into some of the bad habits that have plagued them all year to start with in the first period; a Colby Wiederholt putback and a Tyler Davis 3-pointer were the only points that they scored in that period. In the meantime, the Tigers scored at will as Northeast kept throwing it away against the halfcourt trap and were jacking up 3-pointers, gambling and missing on passes causing easy layups, and not boxing out on the boards.
Coach Charlie Burch had wanted his team to translate stuff from the practice floor onto the court all year, and all of a sudden, they started doing so on the offensive end and made a game out of it at times. But they could not buy a stop on the defensive end. "Take away the first quarter, and we might have had a game," said Burch. "DeKalb shot the ball really well. If we're going to win some games before the year is out, we have to go out and get some stops."
Burch went to a four-guard lineup and took Farnan out to try to cope with the DeKalb trap; however, he put Farnan back in and Farnan responded by converting a 3-point play off a drive with 5:46 left. Davis followed with another 3-point play as well as another layup when Bobby Welch fell down but managed to roll the ball to him. Chad Messner hit a baseline three and Farnan outfought a DeKalb player for a defensive board and hit a free throw, and all of a sudden, Northeast was within 31-22. But Northeast had some lapses as they gave up an offensive board and 3-pointer to kill the rally. Some bad passes and soft defense allowed DeKalb to push the lead back to 41-22 and they led 48-29 at the break.
DeKalb looked poised to blow Northeast away as they scored the first bucket of the second half, but Colby Wiederholt drove down the left side and hit from the left wing against the trap and then Bryce Farnan hit a couple of baseline 3-pointers to make it 50-37. But DeKalb hit some 3-pointers of their own as Northeast went to a zone to try to close off the middle; however, that played into the Tigers' hands as they have been an explosive 3-point shooting team all year. Farnan hit his third 3-pointer of the quarter and Tyler Davis followed with a conventional 3-point play to get back to within 61-48, but back to back 3-pointers against Northeast's zone pushed it right back to 67-48.
Tyler Davis scored nine of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as he had a putback, a 3-pointer, an inside shot, and a coast to coast fast break after one of Northeast's rare defensive stops to clost it to 79-65 with 2:17 left, but DeKalb got a pair of free throws and a putback to kill the rally. Scroggie went coast to coast on a fast break and Bryce Farnan hit a free throw in the closing minutes to account for Northeast's scoring.
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