Thursday, December 16, 2010

Bluejay Boys Crash and Burn in NWMO Semifinals

Northeast Nodaway's boys had a chance to advance to the NWMO Tournament Finals, but crashed and burned in the semifinal round, losing to Maryville JV 50-35 Wednesday night as they could never get untracked offensively and had several lapses on defense as well. "We need to work on all the stuff we've been working on up to this point," said Coach Ryan Madden. "We still haven't got it down." He said that the better team won that night. "We're making it harder on ourselves than we should have. They outworked us, outhustled us, and beat us to all the loose balls and rebounds. It's all about effort."

The Bluejays began right off the bat by missing a ton of free throws and layups, only managing a free throw from Kevin Stoll in the first six minutes of the game before finally getting a putback from Bryce Farnan with two minutes left in the period. The rest of it was marked by too much dribbling on offense, meaning that the players were missing teammates who were wide open underneath the basket. Consequently, Maryville jumped out to a 7-3 lead after one quarter of play.

Lyle Leslie got a putback and Damon Goodall hit from the high post before Northeast finally woke out of their stupor and got some points. Colby Wiederholt scored off a drive and then found Bryce Farnan inside and then Colby scored on a fast break. Bryce Farnan then hit an NBA 3-pointer to put Northeast back in front 12-11. But then nobody guarded Treyton Burch at the top of the key, and his 3-pointer put Maryville up to stay at 14-12 with 2:57 left in the half. That started a 9-0 run that made it 20-12 before Aaron Patton scored on a fast break and then beat the defense down the court for a layup at the buzzer to make it 20-16.

Northeast had some momentum going into the second half, but they went right back into their offensive stupor as they began getting tenative on offense and repeatedly picking up their dribble while Maryville was outworking them on the boards on the other end to pull away. Two straight putbacks from Goodall sparked a 14-2 Maryville run that put them in double digits at 30-18.

Northeast switched from zone to man to man at that point and got a little success, getting a drive from Colby Wiederholt, two free throws from Dalton Welch, and a pair of putbacks from Bryce Farnan to cut the lead to 34-26 at the end of the third quarter. To show how little Northeast was attacking the basket, it was their first trip to the line since the early first quarter.

Any good that Northeast had accomplished with their mild rally to end the third quarter was undone at the start of the fourth as nobody got back on defense and Treyton Burch got behind the defense to get two free throws; Cole Forney added a shot from the left baseline to put Maryville up by double digits for good. The frustration level got so high at one point for Coach Ryan Madden that he drew a warning from official Dan Gallagher for protesting a non-call of a moving screen.

Madden tried benching Bryce Farnan and brought in Tyler Schmitz for the first time in the game; however, Maryville simply began backdooring Northeast to death as Northeast overextended trying to get the ball back and cut into the lead. Tyler Kenkel's 3-point play gave Maryville JV their biggest lead of the game at 45-29 and Northeast could not get any closer than 12 the rest of the way.

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