Northeast Nodaway's boys hung with Jefferson at the start of the game. They still had a chance to catch the Eagles even though they were down 15 at halftime. But a 27-point third quarter for Jefferson triggered a mass exodus from the gym by fans of both schools, who had seen enough of the constant layup drill by the Eagles as Jefferson won the boys game 61-25. So, are the Eagles back to where they were the last few years, in which they won over 50 consective regular season games against 1-A schools? Coach Charley Burch said no -- "They are not that good and we are not that bad," was all he would say after the game. "We played about as bad as it was possible for us to play."
Both teams got off to a ragged start at the beginning of the game. But a telling sequence was one right after the opening sequence, in which Jefferson outworked Northeast and got seven offensive boards before Northeast finally got the ball back. That seemed to set the tone for the rest of the game.
Northeast seemed to struggle against the press and got worse as the game wore on. They got a couple of good looks early -- Bryce Farnan got a feed from Chad Messner in the post to tie it at 2. Later, Farnan beat the Eagle press for a layup to cut Jefferson's lead to 7-4. But the struggles got worse instead of better as instead of getting the ball to the middle of the floor and creating 3 on 2 opportunities, Northeast was dribbling without a purpose against the Eagles and wasting possessions towards the end of the first period, resulting in a steal and drive by Gilbert Henry. Finally, Clayton Schieber burned Northeast twice in a 35-second span, getting a backdoor cut and then a tipin at the buzzer to leave the Eagles up 13-4 after one period.
Zach Jermain hit a 3-pointer to cap the 10-0 run and put Jefferson up 17-4. Northeast finally got going as Colby Wiederholt beat the Jefferson press and Kevin Stoll cleaned up on a miss in transition to make it 17-8. But then Jermain hit his second 3-pointer of the quarter during a 6-0 run that kept Jefferson up 15. The Eagles would lead 30-15 at the break.
Northeast had every reason to think they could make a game of it, as they had nearly erased a 15-point deficit against Jefferson in summer ball. However, all the fight was gone from the Bluejays at the start of the third as Jefferson turned that stretch into a 16-0 layup drill as Coach Charley Burch benched both his post players as well as most of his starters and began putting his third string in at around the 4-minute mark of the third quarter.
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