It is an old expression, but when rivals meet you can throw
out the record books. Rivals North and South ended the regular season in
exciting fashion this past Friday night.
It looked for a while as though it was going to be a lopsided game. But the game grew heated in the 4th
quarter when there was an 11th hour surge that fell just short at
the conclusion of the contest.
In the first quarter, it appeared that North’s Ryan Adams
and South’s Wes Cole were going to put on a shooting clinic. Each scored 11 points apiece in the first
quarter for their teams. McAdams last shot of the quarter was a deep 3 point
shot that hit the back of the rim – but it took an advantageous bounce straight
up and swished through the net on way back down. But South held the advantage at the end of
the first period.
Both teams adjusted their defenses to put pressure on the
other team’s shooters. Anthony
Augspurger and later Winston Crozier drew the task of defending McAdams in
South’s man to man defense. North
adjusted their zone to take away Cole’s outside shooting. This slowed down the pace of scoring. And South had a decisive advantage at
halftime, up 36-22.
Coming out of the break, North experimented with a man to
man defense and also their offense seemed to focus on feeding the ball to the
post. But South came out and had a nice
run – growing their lead to 18 points as the teams entered the last
quarter.
South was complacent in most of the 4th
quarter. The team seemed to dial back
the intensity, but North seemed determined as ever. They began to claw away at the lead one
possession at a time. When they closed to 12 at the 4:44 mark, coach Augspurger
took a timeout to re-focus his players. But to no avail - in another minute it
was an 8 point game. Now South was
starting to sweat as the North crowd began to wake up and get into the
game.
At a minute and a half, it was 63-56 and North had the
momentum. North went to the press as they tried hard to make up the difference
in the little time left. But South
awakened from their slumber and scored on their next three possessions. They were fouled on two made layups and made
those free throws, then hit a shot from the field. This stretched out the lead
again. And North could not generate any
offense when they needed it the most and would finally fall 72-56.
“This makes like 15 quarters in a row where we have not
played good defensively,” stated a frustrated coach Augspurger, “We are going in the wrong direction. I am clearly not happy with the way that we
have playing. We had a great defensive game against Tri-Village – and we have
not done that since.”
“There is no doubt that Wes’s last half of the season has
been great,” replied coach Augspurger when asked about Wes Cole, He is playing
with a lot of confidence. I think a lot
of it is that he is relying on the 3 point shot less, and attacking the basket
more. Obviously we need him to keep doing the things that he has been doing. “
On North’s McAdams,
“McAdams played well, as a matter of fact he was great. He had a fun night – he did some outstanding
things.”
“I thought we started slow,” stated North’s coach King
afterwards, “that has been the case the last 6 games. It is tough when you have to fight back from
a deficit. We did do some good things
tonight. Our defensive pressure was better, but I thought offensively we were
lacking.“
About Ryan McAdams game, “He slowed down a bit in the second
half, but still had a great game. He is very quick and athletic. He has learned to take what the defense gives
him. When he plays within himself he is
hard for other teams to handle. What
happens is the defense hedges down on him more and that opens things up for the
other players. There are 2-3 guys
watching what he does, and the other players can cut to the basket. We were
able to exploit that and get some layups.”
Scoring for North: “McAdams 29, Edgin 4, Cordes 2, Pitcock
7, Branson 4, Vanbrederode 10. South: Cole 26, Jason Utz 3, Cottingim 7,
Bassler 5, Crozier 10, Augspurger 14, JJ Utz 7
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