Your future, our focus
It was a tale of two games against the Rocky Mountain JV for the Northwest men’s basketball team, which cruised to an 85-57 victory at home on Friday before escaping with a 70-67 overtime win in Billings on Tuesday to move to 3-0 on the season.
Starting out on Friday the visiting Battlin’ Bears led 2-0 for just under a minute, before Northwest gained the lead and never looked back.
Northwest pushed the lead out to double digits midway through the first half, and held a 20 point lead at the break, 46-26.
“I was excited for the guys,” coach Andy Ward said. “For 30 minutes we played really well. The last 10 minutes we stopped moving the ball and took too many chances for steals.”
Northwest shot 48.5% as a team compared to 33.3% for Rocky Mountain.
Juan Pablo Camargo Tellez continued his strong early season scoring output, finishing with a 23 point, 10 rebound double-double in the victory.
Davion McAdam finished with 13 points and Andre Loigu finished with 12 points as the other two Trappers in double figures.
Heading into Tuesday the Trappers encountered an entirely different environment, competing in a matchup that saw them trailing throughout the first half.
“They came out in a zone and we didn’t attack it like we needed to,” Ward said. “I thought Rocky played well and manufactured a lot of open looks.”
Northwest went into the break trailing by 16, and searching for answers in the second half.
Over the first five minutes of the second half the Trappers came roaring back, tying the game at 42.
Despite the 22-6 run, the Battlin’ Bears continued to battle and held the lead for a majority of the second half.
A late floater in the paint by David Ayala tied the game at 64 in the final minute, and game-winning shots by both teams missed to send the game to overtime.
In the extra period Northwest edged out the hosts to take a 70-67 victory.
“To give our guys credit they kept battling,” Ward said. “They chipped away and got a win in overtime. It’s definitely a positive when you can win a close game.”
Ward said there was a bit of immaturity in the way the Trappers played, which is to be expected when only three players who played last year returned to this year’s team.
He said that people may view that overtime game against a team NWC just beat handily at home as a negative, but Ward viewed it as a positive that they came back and won after going down big.
Now the Trappers head on the road this weekend to the Central Wyoming College Tournament in Riverton.
Northwest will play Air Force Prep on Friday at 3 p.m. and then will turn around and play Lamar Community College on Saturday at noon.
“I don’t know much about Lamar but I have been looking at Air Force and they look really good,” Ward said. “They are really precise on offense and have some strong physical interior players.”
Turning around quickly from the weekend the Trappers will return home on Monday to take on Williston State College at 7:30 p.m.
Northwest cruised past the Tetons in the season opener 91-68 in North Dakota, but Ward knows that Williston will come to battle.
“I am more concerned about what we do and execute,” Ward said. “(We play) a lot of games quickly, you worry about fatigue. I expected Williston to come out and fight, you can’t let up and overlook someone.”