Northeast Nodaway's boys dominated the paint and won their season opener over Union Star 70-42 last Tuesday in the Platte Valley Conference opener for both teams. According to Coach Charley Burch, the Trojans came out with one of the best teams they had in recent years. However, Northeast used a strong first quarter and a late third quarter run to pull away from the pesky Trojan squad and win. Burch followed the lead of the girls and used a deep bench to finally wear the Trojans down in the latter stages of the game.
Tyler Davis, after only getting four points in the first two and a half quarters, finally got open and scored 19 points in the last 1 1/2 quarters of the game. James Burns played some of his best ball ever as he was pressuring Trojans into turnovers, getting rebounds, blocking shots, making the extra pass, and getting open. "He's been doing everything we've asked him to," said Coach Charley Burch. Bryce Farnan battled foul trouble for most of the game, but was still effective when he was on the court.
Burns opened the scoring with a putback with 7:13 left; Bobby Welch followed with a backdoor layup and Bryce Farnan scored from inside with 4:24 left to put Northeast up 6-0. Union Star was packing things in for most of the game and tried to force Northeast to shoot from outside to beat them. Dylan Klawuhn picked up a carom and scored Union Star's first points, but then Chad Messner hit from outside, Tyler Davis hit a pair of free throws, Messner scored off a fast break, and Colby Wiederholt hit a free throw to make it 14-2.
Klawuhn scored off a steal with 22 seconds left in the first to make it 14-6 and then scored a pair of free throws early in the second to make it 16-8. But then Burns got loose inside as Bryce Farnan got him the ball and then Tyler Davis got an offensive rebound and kicked out to Bobby Welch for a 3-pointer to make it 21-8 with 4:43 left. Davis got open for a drive, Josh Wideman got a free throw, and then Colby Wiederholt hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to make it 27-11 with 3:12 left in the half. But Northeast succumbed to hacking and fouling the rest of the half as Union Star sought to make a game out of it. Free throws by Klawuhn and Nick Palmer and two wide open layups fueled a mild rally that brought Union Star to within 31-19. Northeast hit a pair of free throws, but then Palmer threw up a prayer from just behind half court that went in to make it 33-22 at the break.
The first four minutes of the second half were a slopfest as both teams made a ton of mistakes during the frame. But an Albert Moran 3-pointer that brought Union Star under double digits seemed to wake up Northeast as Tyler Davis finally got loose and the 3-pointers started to fall. Davis connected from inside, Chad Messner nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key, and then James Burns twice fed Davis on the weak side for easy baskets as the Trojans collapsed on Burns and left Davis all alone. Bobby Welch hit a 3-pointer and then Tyler Davis hit a free throw with 9 seconds left to make it 49-27 and put Northeast back in control. "We didn't do anything special," said Coach Burch about the run. "We just kept doing what we were doing and good things started to happen." Chad Messner's 3-pointer to open the fourth capped the 16-0 run that left Northeast in front 52-27.
Union Star could not mount a comeback bid in the fourth quarter as Tyler Davis was on fire, knocking down six straight points for Northeast, who was running their high-low offense to perfection. Bryce Farnan added an inside bucked off a high-low pass from James Burns that made it 60-33 with 4:51 left. Moran's off-balance shot went in to cut it back down to 62-39, but Tyler Davis answered with an inside shot and a putback and Colby Wiederholt gave Northeast its largest lead of the night at 68-39 with a steal. Kevin Stoll came off the bench to grab a putback in the closing seconds for Northeast.
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