Northeast Nodaway's boys used a 20-point effort from Colby Wiederholt to get past West Nodaway 61-50 and advance into the second round of the Northwest Missouri Basketball Tournament. They were able to overcome a strong effort on the other end by West Nodaway's Jeff Whittington in the process as they kept their undefeated streak alive.
There were plenty of areas that Coach Charley Burch said needed work. "We missed a lot of easy shots and we were not totally focused," he said, adding that the three days off due to the weather did not help. The absence of Bobby Welch, out with the flu, did not help as he has been bringing much-needed energy to the team every night. But the Bluejays were able to change the tempo of the game and overcome a subpar scoring night from Tyler Davis, who was favoring an injured shoulder that night. "We took West Nodaway too lightly and didn't play as well as we did against Stanberry," said Burch.
Whittington opened the scoring with an inside shot with 5:56 left, but Bryce Farnan answered with a pair of inside shots, one off a James Burns lob; one of them turned into a 3-point play. Free throws by Heath Harris made it 5-4, but Colby Wiederholt answered with a pair of free throws to make it 7-4. But the next play really symbolized the kind of play that Coach Burch said needed to be cleaned up; the much smaller West Nodaway squad got four successive offensive rebounds before Whittington cleaned up inside to make it 7-6. It didn't help Northeast that the referees let Whittington camp out in the lane all night without calling a 3-seconds violation on the Rockets; the three seconds rule was specifically designed to stop big men from simply camping out in the lane and taking easy shots all night. The two teams traded scores for most of the first quarter before James Burns converted a 3-point play after Josh Wideman grabbed an offensive board and got him the ball to make it 14-9 as Northeast finally started getting some separation.
Assistant Coach Ryan Davis grabbed both Tyler Davis and James Burns and took them aside and gave them a talking to after the first quarter. "I simply told them that they were seniors and that they needed to take it on themselves to stop Whittington," he said afterwards. Coach Charley Burch made an adjustment, going to a four-guard lineup in the second quarter, which allowed Northeast to match up better against the Rockets.
Tyler Davis hit a pair of free throws and James Burns got a layup after Tyler Davis grabbed an offensive carom to make it 20-11. Whittington scored from inside and Sage Jones hit from the left wing to cut the lead to 22-17, but Colby Wiederholt got a steal with 5:17 left and Wideman stole the ensuing inbounds pass and drew the foul and sank one out of two free throws. Tyler Davis followed with an inside shot, Chad Messner got a fast break following a long outlet from Kevin Stoll, and Colby Wiederholt hit a pair of free throws to push the lead out to 31-17 with 2:54 left.
Bryce Farnan picked up his fourth foul early into the second half and West Nodaway began chipping away at the lead. Ethan Bragg hit a couple of 3-pointers that brought the Rockets to within 40-33 at the 4:40 mark of the third. The two teams traded buckets for the remainder of the quarter until Colby Wiederholt hit a pair of driving layups in the last minute of the period to put Northeast back up by double digits at 46-35. Bragg's third 3-pointer in the half cut Northeast's lead back down to 46-39 at the 7:13 mark of the fourth quarter, but Farnan came back in and gave Northeast a lift. Chad Messner hit a shot from the right wing, Farnan scored off a Josh Wideman steal and grabbed a putback, and Colby Wiederholt hit a free throw during a 7-0 run that allowed Northeast to reestablish control. West Nodaway could come no closer than 9 the rest of the way as Wiederholt scored off a drive, worked a perfect give and go with James Burns for a layup, and grabbed a putback in the last two minutes.
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