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Overtime Loss At Dawson Knocks Team From First Place
The Northwest College men’s basketball team slid from a first-place tie atop the Region IX North standings with a 68-64 overtime loss at Dawson Community College last Thursday. The loss came 24 hours after the Trappers looked in full control against Gillette College.
Northwest captured a 94-82 win in that game.
“It was a really disappointing loss,” Trapper men’s basketball coach Andy Ward said. “We led essentially the whole game and were up by four points with 30 seconds to play. At that point, everything went wrong for us.”
It started with a turnover as the Trappers looked to hold the basketball late. Dawson went down and converted a basket, getting fouled in the process. Although Dawson missed the free throw, the host school was able to pull down an offensive rebound and stick the ball back through the hoop to tie the game with 14 seconds to play.
Northwest got a chance to win the game in regulation, but Junior Coleman’s driving shot in the lane was blocked out of bounds to force overtime. In that extra period, Dawson knocked home an early 3-point shot. Northwest played from behind the entire way from there.
“That shot was really a dagger,” said Ward. “I don’t know what happened. We just did not play with the intensity that we needed.”
That postgame mood was considerably different from the one the Trappers were sporting just 24 hours earlier. Northwest jumped on Gillette College early and often in the matchup of Region IX North frontrunners.
The Trappers jumped out to as much as a 23-point lead in the first half. Northwest’s lead was still 18 points as the schools went into the locker room at halftime.
“We played really well against Gillette,” said Ward. “We played exceptionally well in the first half.”
The second half was a bit of a different story. Gillette unleashed a big run, cutting the Trappers’ lead to four points with four minutes to play.
“We’d told the guys at the half to expect Gillette to make a run at us,” said Ward. “They were too good a team not to make a charge. We certainly weren’t thinking they’d get within four though. It tested us in a lot of ways being on the road.”
The Trappers fought off the pressure. A late spate of accurate free throw shooting and defensive stops helped stretch the final margin back into double figures.
The Trappers are now 17-5 overall and 5-3 in Region IX North play. The team sits in a four-way tie for second place alongside Central Wyoming, Casper College and Sheridan College. The four trail Region IX North frontrunner Miles Community College by one game. Gillette College and Western Wyoming are another game back, sporting 4-4 conference records.
Northwest College hosted Central Wyoming on Wednesday night. The team travels to face Sheridan College this Saturday.
“It’s a dogfight night after night,” said Ward. “You win and you can be in first place. You lose, you could wind up in seventh place just like that. There are no easy games.”
NORTHWEST 94, GILLETTE 82
Jeffrey Solarin 19, Junior Coleman 15, Konner Frey 4, Chris Hansen 25, Diego Pasos 2, Ty Ackelson 14, Guilherme Carabagiale 3, Zach Stanley 6, Pietro de Andrade 4, Jeremy Beehler 2.
Stats for the Northwest-Dawson game were unavailable due to problems with the stat keeping at the contest.