Your future, our focus
Trapper Men Outlast Dawson In Shootout
I like my teams to be entertaining,” deadpanned Jay Collins, first year head basketball coach at Northwest College.
Entertaining?
How about edge-of-the-seat heart-stopping?
That was more the case Saturday at Cabre Gym, when Collins’ Trapper men rallied to upend Dawson Community College of Glendive, Montana, 118-109 in overtime; it was the concluding game of the two-day First Bank Shootout.
The Trappers lost to Miles Community College of Miles City, Montana, on Friday 98-85, with the split leaving NWC’s men with a 7-6 record.
TRAPPERS 118, DAWSON CC 109
The Trappers’ overtime win wouldn’t have been possible without some buzzer-beating heroics at the end of regulation.
NWC trailed 96-94 after Dawson’s CJ Nelson flew in for a go-ahead basket with 4.5 seconds left in the game. After a timeout, the Trappers raced the ball down court to find — who else? — sophomore Kyle Brown open. He banked the tying shot off the glass as the buzzer sounded and the scoreboard lights flashed.
Brown scored 36 points in the game on 11-of-22 field goal shooting — including sinking 2 of 5 3-pointers and 12 of 14 free throws. He poured in 43 points in the Friday loss to Miles to give him 79 points in the two Shootout games.
The two teams headed to overtime tied at 96.
A lot happened in the five-minute extra period. Baskets by Josh Petteno and Brown gave Northwest a quick five-point lead the Trappers never surrendered. They were steady at the free throw line, hitting 10 of 11 in overtime. Brown converted six straight free throws, put at the line twice by technical fouls called on the Dawson bench.
”I was super proud of our guys,” Collins said. “It was a fun game to coach.”
Northwest lost its big man, 6-foot, 8-inch sophomore Seth Mason, when he fell to the floor in pain just nine minutes into the game. The injury was later determined to be a badly sprained ankle. Mason will miss the rest of the pre-Christmas season.
“We lost Seth, a starter, and you know the old cliche, next man up,” Collins reviewed. “We hung in there. It’s as well as we’ve played all year. It’s the way you want to see your guys play. Our effort was so good.”
Missing Mason, the Trapper men were out-rebounded by Dawson 41-27, including 13 offensive rebounds by the Bucs. But Northwest responded with torrid shooting. For the game, the Trappers shot 57 percent from the field on 42 of 74 attempts. They were an even 50 percent from beyond the arc, hitting 14 of 28.
At the same time, Dawson was no slouch in the shooting department. In the first half, the Bucs were a phenomenal 20 of 34 from the field and 10 of 17 from 3-point land for 58 percent shooting in both departments. They finished 56 percent for the game, but cooled off from 3-point line with just 5 of 16 in the second half and overtime.
“Our guys never quit,” Collins praised. “We had one guy, Jahquel Goss, off the bench get his first meaningful playing time, and he scored four points, had two rebounds, three assists and a blocked shot in 16:31 of playing time.”
Goss is a 6 foot, 5 inch freshman from the Bronx, New York.
Brown’s 36 points topped the scoring charts for NWC. Three others scored in double figures: Petteno had 26 points on 10 of 17 from the field, including making 6-of-9 3-pointers. Jerome Mabry added 19 and Max Dehon 11.
MILES CC 98, TRAPPERS 85
NWC and Miles traded punches for most of the first half in Friday’s Shootout opener. It was a two-point game with three minutes to play in the half when Miles reeled off seven straight points to take a 49-40 lead. The Pioneers went to the locker room with a 51-42 advantage at halftime.
After the break, the Trappers had little answer for an athletic Miles team which piled up a 45-28 advantage on the boards. Miles had 17 offensive rebounds. The Pioneers built a 20-point lead, 72-52, at the 13:17 mark.
Brown scored 21 second half points and finished the night with 18 of 28 from the field, 4 of 8 from three, for his total of 43 points. But the Trappers couldn’t get closer than within nine points in the second half.
Mason was the only other Trapper to score in double figures. He had 12 points, followed by Rambo Badyal with nine, Petteno seven, Mabry four, Alan Swenson and Dehon three each, Ron Fell and Eric Jackson two each.
“We played two very good teams this weekend,” said Collins of Dawson and Miles. “They’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in that region.”
Dawson CC and Miles CC are members of the Mon-Dak Conference. Northwest lost to both teams in November games in Montana. Miles beat the Trappers 99-90 there, and Dawson won going away, 94-67.
“We’re going to be a little short-handed now with Seth [Mason] out,” Collins said. “But he’ll be back in January.”
The Trapper men close out their pre-Christmas schedule with games at Bismarck (North Dakota) State College Friday and against United Tribes Saturday.