The freshmen scored a tough season-opening win against the Bloomington Raiders on Wednesday night.
The Ironmen had a distinct height advantage, a good three inches on every man in the frontcourt. And after early struggles they did dominate the boards by a 42-19 margin, easily surpassing their pre-game goal of +10.
Still, the scrappy home team freed themselves for enough open jumpers and slashing dribble drives through traffic that they often held a lead of up to six points.
In the final minute, the anxious crowd which had swelled to a couple hundred cheered wildly with under 20 seconds to go as a slick feed following a baseline drive tipped the Raiders ahead by two. Coming out of a halfcourt set and a timeout, the Ironmen found an open free throw line jumper that missed, but grabbed one of those clutch rebounds to tie the game just in front of the horn.
Madness erupted from the NCHS fans. And the team went on to control the overtime period for the win, followed by a B game that was never in doubt and a ten-point win.
Considering that BHS had already had a previous game to work out their opening jitters, this solid victory was a good character builder.
No comments:
Post a Comment