Harley Day of North Union boxes out a Clear Fork player after a free throw during a basketball game at North Union. Despite a strong fourth quarter push, the Wildcats fell to the Colts 62-59.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
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The North Union Wildcats boys basketball team needed about one more minute against the Colts of Clear Fork to take the lead during Friday night’s ball game.
Unfortunately for the Cats, the game is only 32 minutes long and they 62-59.
At the start of the final stanza, the Cats found themselves in a 12-point hole, but that was when their offense flipped a switch and started poring on the points.
“Basically we want to attack when we have advantages,” said NU coach Brian Terrill. “When we don’t, we want to make sure we are running our offense to make sure we get good quality shots. We were pretty good at shot selection tonight.”
The Cats scored twice as many baskets in the final quarter of play than they did during any other period.
The only problem was, the Colts kept adding points to the board as well.
“Our number one priority was to get back and take away their transition,” said Terrill. “But you wouldn’t know it. They annihilated us in transition and it looked like we didn’t work on it at all.
“They got a lot of open looks and basically whenever we didn’t press, they got open looks.”
The Cats’ defense struggled to keep the quick Colts in front them during most of the game. Clear Fork relied heavily on transitioning the ball from their end of the court to North Union’s as quickly as possible. The tactic caught the Cats on their heels and allowed the Colts to take numerous open shots.
NU held its own on the offensive side of the court, using either a set play or transition basketball to put points on the board. The real struggle for the Wildcats’ offense came at the free throw line.
“Our free throws were bad… they made theirs and we didn’t (make ours),” said Terrill. “They boxed out better then we did, so two of the critical categories of the game were free throws and rebounding. We lost those areas and that is the difference in the ball game.”
Although Terrill believes the game could have swung in the Cats’ favor, he understands that when you have young players on the court, their play can be up and down.
“We are just very young and very inconsistent and we are playing that way,” he said.
North Union dropped to 1-2 on the season and will return to action on Thursday when it hosts Ontario.
NU 9 13 12 25 59
C’Fork 12 19 15 16 62
NU scoring: Soviak- 22, Price- 13, Day- 9, Feasel- 9, Crabtree- 5, Krebehenne- 1
CF scoring: Barnett- 17, Schaefer- 9, Chillemi- 7, Spencer- 7, Seifert- 5, Tedrow- 4, Swainhart- 3