Northeast Nodaway's girls played at Bearcat Arena, the site where they beat Mercer 10 years ago during their run to their second place finish at state. The trip obviously brought back memories for people, but the result this time was not as fortunate, with the girls falling to DeKalb 39-24 in the third place game of the Platte Valley Tournament. But the team met their goal of getting to that point; winners of the opening round games play at Bearcat Arena for either the championship or the third place game in the Platte Valley Conference Tournament.
Offensively, the Bluejays did too much dribbling without a purpose instead of getting into their offense and running their plays; they had problems on the defensive boards as well, given DeKalb's size advantage. But they were getting back and hustling on defense very well, taking away a lot of transition looks for DeKalb. Northeast did a good job of playing defense, but they struggled on offense, trailing 6-0 after one quarter. They did not get their first points of the game until Taryn Farnan's putback with 6:32 left to make it 8-2.
Northeast's worst stretch of the game followed as they were continuing to dribble without a purpose on offense and speeding up against the press instead of slowing down, playing into DeKalb's hands. On defense, they were losing shooters, resulting in some good outside looks for DeKalb. Consequently, they were down 20-2 with two minutes left before they finally started playing well.
But frequently, how one team finishes the half dictates the course of the second half and that was the case this time as Northeast cleaned up their excessive dribbling and did a much better job of getting to the rim. Jill Spire drove and found an open Dallis Coffelt to break the spell; Taryn Farnan hit a free throw and a putback to make it 20-7 at halftime.
Northeast did a good job of boxing out on defense and getting to the rim on offense at the start of the second half; DeKalb's best post player picked up her third and fourth fouls and sat down with 4:45 left. Holly Redden hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make it 22-12 and Northeast was attacking the press well enough that DeKalb had to take it off.
But Northeast could not get under double digits because they were struggling from the free throw line; they were 9 for 24 from the line that night and they lost Madison Reagan of DeKalb on defense; she beat them on the cut a few times. Claudia Wiederholt's pullup early in the fourth made it 28-18, but then Northeast overextended trying to get the ball back and DeKalb was able to push it back up to15 at the final buzzer.
Taryn Farnan got a season high 11 points to lead Northeast. Holly Redden followed with 8 followed by Dallis Coffelt with 3, Claudia Wiederholt with 2, and Kerrigan Adwell with 1.
Northeast lost 52-24 to Jefferson to fall to the third place game. They started off playing well for the first three minutes, but then began turning the ball over against Jefferson and the game quickly turned into a layup drill for Jefferson, which led 23-3 after the first quarter. After that, Northeast settled down and played better basketball for the remaining three quarters, but the damage was done. "We're learning as a team how to handle these situations," said Vance Proffitt. "Jill Spire is playing well as a freshman and it's coming to her sooner than a lot of other people." Spire was a bright spot for Northeast in the loss, leading the scoring with 12. Kerrigan Adwell had 5, Claudia Wiederholt had 4, and Holly Redden had 3. Dallis Coffelt added a monster stuff that was shown on KQ2 that night.
Proffitt said that Monday's 42-24 win over South Nodaway was a good team effort and that it was a big improvement over the first game, a 34-28 loss to Albany. He said that his team had done a much better job of forcing turnovers against the Longhorns and that they had done a much better job of attacking the rim on offense. Northeast used a 15-4 second quarter to take a double digit lead at halftime and they were in control the rest of the way. They landed 7 in the scoring column with Claudia Wiederholt leading the scoring with 13, followed by Jill Spire with 10. Dallis Coffelt had 6, Kerrigan Adwell had 5, Taryn Farnan with 4, and Holly Redden and Allie Runde with 2.
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