Northeast Nodaway’s girls rained down nine threes against Stanberry in their third meeting between the two teams and Dalanie Auffert grabbed her 700th rebound as the Bluejays came away with a 51-47 win in the first round of districts. After struggling to score for much of the year, the Bluejays came alive in the Stanberry game, with Hadley DeFreece getting five 3-pointers and Mylee Wilmes getting four.
Stanberry showed a lot of improvement from their first two games. After being a one dimensional team for the first part of the year, with most of the scoring coming from Amelia Wallace, they were able to get Lindsey Hailey untracked from the 3-point line, and Trista Lager emerged as one of the top on the ball defenders. She drew the assignment of guarding Baylie Busby, holding her to 12 points after Busby had averaged around 20 for most of the year.
It looked like a long night for the Bluejays in the first quarter after Stanberry started showing the kind of offensive firepower that had eluded them in the first two games they played. They were running Wallace into the high post off a screen, getting her the ball, and having her dish off to open people, creating plenty of scoring opportunities. Northeast turned the ball over five times in the first quarter, and Stanberry led by as much as eight before four points from Auffert late in the period cut the Bluejay deficit to 15-9 after one.
Busby got a steal and hit two free throws to cut it to four to start the second quarter, but then Lager hit a 3-pointer, Wallace scored off a steal, and then dished off to Kaitlyn James backdoor as the Stanberry lead grew to 22-11. They led by 11 twice before Mylee Wilmes’ 3-pointer cut it to 23-16. But then Wallace scored to close out the half and James scored to start the third quarter and put Stanberry up 27-16.
But then Hadley DeFreece suddenly hit back to back jacks, and Northeast was right back in the game down only 27-22. Bella Wright got loose in transition to make it 29-22, but then Baylie Busby started stealing the ball at will and the Bluejay deficit started shrinking. Brianna Meyer scored four straight to cut it to 31-30 before leaving with an injury; she returned later in the game and played in the Platte Valley game.
Eva Cameron put Stanberry up 33-30 with 2:27 left, but then Mylee Wilmes hit a 3-pointer, Hadley DeFreece hit another, and the Bluejays were in the lead at 36-33. Lindsey Hailey tied it up with a 3-pointer, but Hadley untied it with one of her own and Busby added a pair of free throws to put the Bluejays in front 41-36 after three.
Hadley DeFreece and Mylee Wilmes struck again early in the fourth quarter and the Bluejays led by as much as nine twice, but then Stanberry started coming back and Kaitlyn James and Lindsey Hailey struck to cut it to 49-45.
Northeast started freezing the ball, but Stanberry, with no team fouls, could afford to be very aggressive and Wallace got a steal with 1:39 left, only to miss two free throws that would have cut it to two. Wallace got another steal, only for Lager to miss a 3-pointer. Wallace got the offensive board, but Dalanie Auffert blocked her putback try and Brianna Meyer got a tieup.
Stanberry pressed and forced a turnover to get the ball back, but Hailey missed a 3-pointer. Despite the Bluejays being without one of their best ballhandlers in Jill Boswell, who was bleeding on her forehead and had to come out during that stretch, they were able to handle the ball better and drew Stanberry’s last three fouls. Finally, Baylie Busby hit two free throws to make it 51-45 with 36 seconds left.
Brianna Meyer got a steal to Baylie Busby, who got it to Hadley, but she missed a layup try with 16 seconds left and Wallace countered on the other end with 9 seconds left to make it 51-47 as Stanberry used their last timeout. Northeast missed two free throws, but Stanberry’s halfcourt heave missed.
Against Platte Valley, Northeast couldn’t get anything going offensively as Platte Valley pulled away to an 8-0 lead after one. Blair Nelson kept them in the game for a while in the second quarter, scoring twice to keep the Bluejay deficit at 14-4. They had been there before against Platte Valley and had made things interesting, but then the rebounding broke down, with Platte Valley getting six offensive boards in the last four minutes of the second quarter. The game snowballed from there, with Platte Valley taking an 18-4 halftime lead and pulling away to a 45-13 win.
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