Lincoln, Ne – It was a snowy Saturday on the 12th when North Platte pulled into Lincoln to take on Lincoln Pius X. Pius would end up taking both the games from the Bulldogs though North Platte would make things interesting.
The girls game would start with Pius jumping out to an 8-0 lead as their transition game got up to speed early. The Thunderbolts didn’t show any signs of fatigue after playing Lincoln High the night previous. Pius would end the first quarter of action with a 17-8 lead. Callie Haneborg had all four of her points in the opening frame.
The second quarter featured messy basketball from both teams. Turnovers were in abundance as both teams started playing stingy defense. Pius would outscore the Lady Bulldogs 13-1 in the second to go into halftime up 30-9. McKenna Little would score the only point in the quarter off of a free throw.
Coach Hammond would make adjustments during the break and the Bulldogs came out of the half looking much better. They started on a quick 6-0 run and forced Pius to take a quick T/O. The third quarter is when Gracie Haneborg would come alive scoring 7 of her 9 points in the frame and doing a lot of work on the defensive side of the ball. The score was 44-26 after 3.
In the fourth Quarter, Pius used a balanced scoring attack behind Kloee Sander and Alexis Markowski to push the lead to 20 points and beyond. The Bulldogs could only put four points on the board and would fall to Pius 63-30.
North Platte drops to 5-6 on the season as they have almost a full week off before taking on GISH at home on Friday the 18th. Gracie Haneborg lead the way again with 9 points. Abby Orr lead the Bulldogs in rebounding with 5.
The boys game immediately followed the girls, as the Bulldogs would look to snap their losing streak against the #1 team in the state.
The Bulldog boys came out looking like they didn’t care that Pius was the #1 team in the state. The first quarter featured lots of both teams flying up and down the court while going back and forth for the lead. Pius’ biggest lead of the first quarter was 6, while the Bulldogs put up a lead of 4 points in the quarter. The quarter would come to an end with Pius having the one point advantage 21-20. Max Hayes and Kiya Kramer would lead the Dawgs with 6pts each.
The second quarter was almost an exact replica of the first quarter. The two teams would go back and forth all quarter long trading the lead 5 different times. As the play got faster so did the mistakes as both teams started to turn the ball over. Pius would once again edge the Bulldogs 11-10 in the quarter giving the Thunderbolts the lead at the half 32-30. Make no mistake the momentum was firmly on the North Platte side of the court. Steven Garcia would lead the way scoring for the Dawgs at the half with 9 points.
Like in the girls game, Pius would make adjustments during the break at halftime and come out with fire starting the third with a 7-2 run that would lead to an extended 14-2 run to start the quarter. This would prompt head coach Matt Kaminski to take a time out and try to stop the run by Pius. At the time it was 47-32. Pius would score the final 10 points of the quarter and held the Bulldogs to just 2 points to take a big 57-32 point lead into the 4th.
Give the Bulldogs credit as they would not take a 25-2 quarter sitting down. North Platte came out firing on all cylinders in the 4th and would cut the lead to as little as 10 points in a few places behind stingy defense. The three ball was finally falling as Kiya Kramer exploded for 8 points in the quarter. The lead Pius had gotten in the third proved to be too much as the Bulldogs fell short in their comeback bid 65-51.
The Boys fall to 2-9 on the season and have the same almost week off before welcoming in GISH. Kiya Kramer lead the team with 14 points. Max Hayes gobbled up 5 rebounds for the Dawgs.