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Falcons put away Knights; North girls win in OT

By Dean Hensley
Times-News Staff Writer

Published: Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:58 p.m.

For the first half of Friday night's game at West Henderson, the North Henderson boys basketball team made the game look like it was going to be a stalemate.

But then, Falcon coach Rob Bliss made a change. He went with a faster group for the full-court press, and the strategy worked. The Knights hit just 1-of-7 shots in third period and then missed their first five shots of the fourth as West went on a 16-1 run and went on to win 55-40.

"Coach Bliss is a great coach," North coach Skip Taylor said. "He knew how to attack our weaknesses, and one of our weaknesses is handling the ball under pressure. When you make only one field goal in the third period, it's hard to win a ballgame."

Keenan Young had 14 points, and Matt Roberts added 13 to lead West. Colby Drake (10 points) was the only Knight in double figures.

"When we went with the more mobile young group on defense, that seemed to really change the game," West coach Rob Bliss said. "The pressure defense turned into turnovers and scores for us."

The Knights ended the game with 22 turnovers.

North falls to 4-9 and 2-5 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference and travels to East Henderson on Tuesday.

The Falcons improve to 8-8 and 5-3 and has a road game Tuesday at Smoky Mountain.

The girls' opener was a lot closer. North's Meredith Israel hit one of her free throws with just under a minute left to tie the score at 37-37. Then in the closing seconds, Kaitlyn Burton had a steal and broke away for a layup.

"She got ahead of everybody. She just put it up a little too strong. Still, it was a great effort on her part," West coach Robbie Lowrance said.

The game went to overtime, and North went on a tear, outscoring the Lady Falcons 11-2 to take a hard-fought 48-39 Appalachian Athletic Conference victory.

"Whew. That was a close one," Lady Knight coach Kevin Rhodes said. "We hit our free throws, and that was big. We also controlled the boards in overtime."

The last time the girls teams of West and North played, the Lady Falcons won handily. This time, North had an extra weapon.

"We didn't have Catie Byrd at the last game. Catie was big for us tonight," Rhodes said.

Byrd had 12 points and went 8-of-10 from the free throw line down the stretch.

Jodi Edwards also had 12 points for North (10-5, 4-4), and Ashley Brown added 11 points. Jessica Hartley also had eight blocks, six steals and six rebounds.

Ashley Rogers (12 points) was the only double-digit scorer for West (6-10, 3-5).

Summaries

BOYS

NORTH HENDERSON (40) — Hunt 3, Heim 1, Drake 10, Roberts 4, Nix 5, Morgan 3, Tuttle 2, Donaldson 9, Holden 3.

WEST HENDERSON (55) — Bernadas 6, Thelen 5, Young 14, Roberts 13, Grant 2, Cole 2, Thomas 5, Landreth 8.

JV game: West won.

GIRLS

NORTH HENDERSON (48) — Edwards 12, Brown 11, Geneve, Hartley 4, Byrd 12, Israel 9.

WEST HENDERSON (39) — Kremer 9, Burton 9, Hendrix 9, Rogers 12.

JV game: West won.

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