Northeast Nodaway's boys dropped a heartbreaker in OT to South Nodaway 43-42. After pulling out some close games earlier this year, the Bluejays finally dropped one. "Sometimes, you have to go through this in order to win one," said coach Chaim Jenkins. Northeast snapped a two game winning streak and now has eight games to make their case for a better district seeding. The bad news is that this is a brutal week for the Bluejays with a game with North Andrew on tap. The good news is that it will only get better now that they have their whole team back.
Shaun Burns came back and showed one of the huge scoring bursts of which he is capable as he had nine straight points in the first half and 11 overall. The game was a well-played defensive struggle between two evenly matched teams. Neither side could take control and nobody led by more than 5 the whole game. Steve Schulte hit a 3-pointer to make it 38-34 Northeast with 6:09 in regulation, but Dalton Murphy scored six straight for the Longhorns to put them back in front 40-38. But then Max Giesken fed Joel Scroggie. Joel, who had been limited to three points up to that point, scored to tie it up with 1:15 left. South Nodaway ran down for the last shot, but Kyle Wolf's shot was off line and the game went to overtime.
Andrew Faustlin scored his first points of the whole game to put Northeast up 42-40 with 2:32 left in overtime as both teams were content to run down the clock and play for one possession. Zeb Coleman made one out of two for South Nodaway and then Northeast ran it down to 17.2 as South Nodaway only had three fouls and had to use up a lot of time to get Northeast into the bonus. Garet Jackson missed the front end of a one and one and South Nodaway went to Damien Willmore for the last shot. Willmore, normally a 3-point shooter, drove the line and put up a runner over Joel Scroggie that went in with 4.8 seconds left. Garet Jackson, who shared scoring honors with Shaun Burns with 11, rushed up the court following a timeout and threw up an off-balance three-pointer that was long as time expired.
The girls did better against South Nodaway than the last time they played them, but made too many mistakes as they lost 47-31 as they were playing shorthanded without Claudia Wiederholt (eye). Claudia, their main ballhandler, hurt her eye during the JV warmups and they could ill afford to lose her against a good pressing team like South Nodaway. They committed 11 turnovers in the first quarter as they dug themselves into a 13-6 hole that they could not get out of. They could have made it a lot closer, but they were one for ten from the line in the first half. Somehow, Northeast's girls have had trouble shooting free throws against South Nodaway; the Bluejays shot 12 for 32 against the Longhorns in a game played a few years ago but still managed to win.
The basic premise of breaking a press is to either get the ball to the middle and get across the timeline or get a quick reversal and get across before the defense can rotate over. But the players were constantly driving into the traps down the sideline, resulting in a good chunk of their turnovers. Northeast was lucky to be down by only 20-10 at the break, but they could not catch up against the Longhorns in the second half. Finally, Coach Vance Proffitt had seen enough and dd the 5 in 5 out drill, putting in a lineup of Jill Spire, Talina Nelson, Brianna Riley, Allie Runde, and Bailey Judd with four minutes left in the third. Proffitt was pleased with the result as they held their own against the Longhorns, but Northeast was unable to get it any closer than 11 in the second half.
Jill Spire was a bright spot for Northeast in the game, getting 12 points, one off her career high. Taryn Farnan and Holly Redden followed with 6 each, Brianna Riley and Dallis Coffelt had 3 each, and Vanessa Riley had 1.
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