Northeast Nodaway's boys once again struggled coming out of the lockerroom at halftime and fell to North Harrison 49-38 as they were denied consolation at the South Harrison Tournament Friday night. In their two previous games, they struggled defensively and couldn't buy a stop; this time, they held the Shamrocks to 49 points but could not buy a bucket. The boys were suffering what Coach Charley Burch called a lack of confidence; that showed up most prominently in the box score. Tyler Davis and Bryce Farnan each had 16 points for the night. However, the rest of the team only had six points combined, meaning that nobody else could solve the Shamrock 1-2-2 zone, which sagged on the inside and dared Northeast to shoot over them. The other glaring stat was only five fouls called on North Harrison, meaning that Northeast was not doing enough to draw contact and get on the line when they were not making shots. Northeast did not go to the line once the whole game.
Northeast came out focusing on Ryan Cox, one of several sharpshooters the Shamrocks have on their team. But they could not buy a bucket on their own end until Bryce Farnan finally put back a miss and Tyler Davis scored from inside following a Shamrock turnover to put Northeast up 4-2 with 4:03 left. North Harrison began looking to establish the high-low and got it to Tanner Bowen inside; Bowen followed with a free throw to put North Harrison up 5-4 at the 2:16 mark. Farnan countered with an inside shot, but Cox hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key that sparked a 6-0 run that put North Harrison up 12-6.
Tyler Davis then ran over a Shamrock defender to spark a Northeast run; his layup cut it to 12-8 with 24 seconds left. Cox hit from the left wing at the buzzer, but James Burns tipped an offensive carom to Davis for a layup; Davis cleaned up after a Chad Messner runner that was off the mark and hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to put Northeast up 15-14. Northeast went to the same 1-3-1 defense that threw Trenton off-balance at the start of the fourth quarter. But then consecutive steals by North Harrison in the last minute of the period put them back ahead 18-15.
The second half was a completely different game from the first. Garren Gibson opened the scoring for North Harrison with a putback at the 7:18 mark; from there, Northeast struggled to solve the diamond press that the Shamrocks put on; Coach Burch cited Northeast's turnovers during the game as critical. On the other end, Northeast could not buy a defensive board against the smaller Shamrock squad, who scored nine points in just over a two-minute span and threatened to repeat the Trenton debacle.
Northeast broke the run behind a baseline shot from Tyler Davis and a putback by Colby Wiederholt as they put on a press of their own to break the run. But then Tanner Bowen got a steal for North Harrison and later grabbed a putback in the closing seconds of the period to put them up 31-19.
The Shamrocks had trouble protecting big leads last year, but they had no such trouble Friday night as they answered a Bryce Farnan 3-pointer with three free throws from Ryan Cox and a baseline shot form Garren Gibson to go up 36-22; Northeast could not get the lead under double digits again. Chad Messner's shot from the right wing put the lead to 38-27 with 4:36 left, but then North Harrison began driving at will on Northeast as they were forced to extend their defense to try and get the ball back; Tanner Bowen's driving layup with 2:20 left capped a 6-0 run that gave them their biggest lead of the night at 44-27. Northeast would not get closer than the final score despite two 3-pointers from Bryce Farnan and one from Tyler Davis in the last two minutes of the game.
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