Rory Bredlow Sparks NEN Junior High Boys to Easy Win

Northeast Nodaway's junior high boys dropped their first game of the year to North Nodaway. Jared Freemyer said that they were too stagnant against their 2-3 zone on offense and did too much hacking and fouling on defense. The result was a 12 point loss after they had led for much of the game.

But since then, Jared Freemyer's Bluejays have gotten better. Against King City, a team normally very competitive, Northeast beat them 40-6 in a running clock game in King City. Against Union Star, Rory Bredlow played a big part for his squad, especially in the first quarter, to spark them to a 47-17 victory. He scored off a fast break early in the game off a Reed McIntyre steal and scored off a back door pass from Ethan Adwell. He would not score again for the rest of the game, but he would have an impact, as he constantly hounded the Trojan players into mistakes, bad passes, and turnovers similar to what Paige West did in the girls game and similar to what Zach and Al Harmening did during their playing days at Worth County.

Northeast tried to run Star out of the gym, but their skipper, David Stroud, had them well prepared for that tactic. They were able to stay with Northeast despite having had little experience on the court and came to play. But then Northeast began working the offensive glass in the second quarter to pull away, outscoring the Trojans 12-1 in the second as Mitchell Sherry, Ethan Adwell, and Nathan Schieber all collected boards. Rory added two assists in the period. "Rory was a game-changer," said Freemyer after the game. "When he was on the bench, we could do nothing."

Freemyer's squad used balanced scoring in the third to put up 20 more and trigger the running clock. "We spread out our scoring as well as we have since I've been here," he said. McIntyre had 8, Schieber had 6, Sherry had 4, and Levi Boulting had 2 in the period. Craig Burns came off the bench to score from inside for the reserves in the fourth and Boulting, only a 7th grader, hit an NBA 3-pointer at the buzzer. For the last three years, Freemyer had the luxury of having a go-to player he could rely on for scoring in Dylan Mildfeldt and later Spencer Weir. "We don't have that this year, but we have a lot of players who really work hard and know the game," said Freemyer. "It's a fun group to coach."