Northeast Nodaway's girls started strong and then finished strong in a 47-38 win over DeKalb that had none of the last-second drama of the King City Tournament finale. But it was a solid recovery from a 73-54 loss against CFX in its previous game. The key difference was in the abilities of the teams to recover from a loss; Northeast has not lost consecutive games yet this year. DeKalb, however, was coming off their worst game of the year, a 48-17 shellacking at the hands of Jefferson that surprised even the Jefferson partisans. The Tigers had also responded to their earlier loss to the Bluejays by losing to North Platte by 25.
The other key stat, supplied by Coach Ryan Davis, concerned the team's rebounding -- Northeast outrebounded DeKalb by 10 and had four different players with five or more rebounds. DeKalb had outrebounded Northeast in the first meeting between the two teams. Tessa Gillis had torched the Bluejays in the first game and gave her team a chance to win it; Northeast held her to 9 in Monday night's meeting. None of the other players went off on Northeast or was able to take over the game. Northeast got the win despite Michelle Schulte being under the weather for the night. "I asked her two or three times if she was all right, but she was," said Coach Davis.
With the win, Northeast clinched third place in the Platte Valley Conference with a 5-2 record behind South Nodaway and Jefferson. The Longhorns beat the Eagles for the conference title earlier in the year. The Bluejays met one of their goals as they wanted to win their Homecoming game. They have one more goal to meet; "We don't want to lose in our white uniforms," said Coach Davis. For that to happen, Northeast will have to get by a very tough Tarkio squad which beat CFX, the team that blitzed Northeast in Craig, 61-56. Northeast will then open districts against North Nodaway in Burlington Junction; the Mustangs have gone 8-13 this year and have shown some firepower in putting up 47 and 60 in losses to CFX and Tarkio respectively.
The game went back and forth until the fourth quarter, when Northeast got its transition game going and put the game away. DeKalb came out in the half-court trap that Northeast had trouble with the first time; however, Northeast had a much easier time playing against it the second time. Northeast did a much better job of getting the ball to the middle and attacking the basket; Blair Schmitz kicked it out to Kristin Sherry for an easy layup and to Emily Bryant for a jumper; Bryant would go on to hit a shot from the top of the key and a shot from the wing in the period to collect six for the quarter. That forced DeKalb to play honest on her and opened up the lanes for Jacqueline Schulte. Michelle Schulte added a putback to make it 8-3. Jacqueline Schulte got a putback and Kenzie Waldeier came off the bench for a rebound putback and Northeast went ahead 16-7.
Although Gillis was bottled up, DeKalb went to McKenzie Reagan to bring them back in the game and she got a driving layup and a kickout to Paige Hartman; Hartman added a 3-pointer that capped an 11-1 run that put DeKalb back up 18-17. But that was the story of the night for DeKalb; they would use up their energy making runs that would give them the lead, only to wear themselves out doing so and allowing Northeast to jump right back in front. Jacqueline Schulte drove straight down the middle of the DeKalb trap, Kristin Sherry scored off a Michelle Schulte steal, and Jacqueline Schulte drove down the middle of the trap again and drew a foul, making one of two to put Northeast back in front 25-20 at the break.
But the second half started off badly for Northeast as they gave up a four-point play as Gillis drove to the basket and drew the foul, missed the free throw, and Reagan was there for the putback. Hartman scored from the high post and DeKalb was right back in front at 26-25. Northeast struggled against the trap, being unable to mount any kind of scoring threat until Blair Schmitz drove to the basket with 4:06 left to cut it to 28-27 to break a four-minute scoring drought. DeKalb switched to their man to man, but Jacqueline Schulte posted up and scored to tie it at 30 before DeKalb hit a baseline shot with six seconds left in the third to go back ahead.
Northeast made a key adjustment that made a big difference from last time -- they went to a 1-3-1 zone which made it a lot more difficult for Gillis to drive at will against them like she did in the first game. For the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, the game looked like it would be a repeat of the last game, which went to the wire. The only score during that frame was a free throw from Reagan that allowed DeKalb to match its largest lead of the game at 33-30. But all of a sudden, Jacqueline Schulte made a clutch play as she has done so often throughout the past three years as she drove straight down the middle of the trap again for a layup with 5:34 left. That seemed to burst open a dam. DeKalb threw up a quick shot to respond, but it went astray and Michelle Schulte got the defensive board and went coast to coast, dishing off to Blair Schmitz to put Northeast up to stay. Northeast got another defensive stop and got the ball to Schmitz against the trap, but the Tigers overextended, leaving Kristin Sherry all alone for the layup. Sherry added a free throw to make it 37-33 with 3:36 left.
Gillis got a putback to cut it to two and Emily Bryant missed an open baseline shot. But Kristin Sherry was there for the putback to make it a four-point game again at 39-35. The Bluejays got another stop and then Northeast began running out the clock as DeKalb went to their full court press. Northeast went six for eight down the stretch from the line as Kristin Sherry, Blair Schmitz, Jacqueline Schulte, and Cammi Hansen all had free throws during the stretch; Michelle Schulte had a steal and drive as well to account for the scoring. Krista Harvey made a meaningless 3-pointer with 12.8 seconds to account for the final score.
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