North Platte – The No. 5 North Platte Community College men’s basketball team’s (19-1, 9-1 South Sub-Region, 3-0 NCCAC) emerged victorious Tuesday night in a hard fought game over the McCook Community College Indians (15-7, 6-4 South Sub-Region, 1-2 NCCAC) by a score of 82-79. The win was the 900th win in program history and 586th in head coach Kevin O’Connor’s career.
“McCook is a very talented team,” said assistant coach Nathan Wieseler. “Any time you get two rivals in the same building it is going to be a great game and tonight was no exception. We were fortune to come out on top tonight.”
The Knights and Indians battled back and forth all night as neither team was able to gain a substantial advantage. Over the course of the game, there were eight lead changes and seven ties. The largest lead of the game was when the Knights earned an 11 point lead that was very short lived.
During the first half both teams battled back and forth with the Knights gaining a 41-36 lead at the intermission. Ethan Montalvo shouldered most of the load in the first half as he had 16 points as the only Knight in double-figures. Dominic Williams was the only Indian in double-figures with 12 points as the Knights held a slim 41-36 advantage at the break.
In the second half the Knights and Indians continued to battle back and forth with the Knights able to gain an 11 point advantage as their largest lead of the game. The Indians would not go quietly and continued to battle.
A banked 3-pointer by Cody Wudtke gave the Indians their only lead of the second half at a score of 77-76. The Knights would increase their defensive intensity and hold the Indians to only a lay-up by Tony Dobbinson late in the game.
The play of the game was a Tim Simmons offensive rebound with under a minute to go in a tie game. In one motion, Simmons rebounded the missed shot and put it back up as he was fouled for an and one. Simmons made the free throw to give the Knights a three point lead. On the ensuing possession, Dobbinson made his last field goal of the game to cut the deficit to one. Cameron Williams was fouled and made one of two free throws to give the Knights an 81-79 lead.
Williams missed the second free throw and during the ensuing scramble, the ball went out of bounds off the Knights with eight seconds remaining. After a McCook timeout, Dobbinson missed a contested 3-pointer to take the lead. Williams was again fouled by the Indians with 0.4 seconds remaining, where he made the first free throw and missed the second as the desperation heave hit the speakers in the rafters to preserve the victory for the Knights.
Montalvo led the Knights in scoring with 25 points on 8 of 11 shooting from the floor. Cameron Williams was huge in the second half as he finished with 23 points on 11 of 14 shooting from the free throw line. Marco Pascolo was the only other Knight in double-figures with 11 points. Jacob Maslo led the Knights with eight rebounds and also contributed eight points.
“We came into the game knowing it was a huge rivalry game and we played really good as a team,” said sophomore Jacob Maslo. “Our focus was to get rebounds and guard them as a team. It was a great crowd and win for our team.”
Dominic Williams fouled out of the game but led the Indians with a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds. The Indians leading scorer Tony Dobbinson finished with 19 points on 8 of 21 shooting from the floor. D’Andre Downey was the third Indian in double-figures as he finished with 13 points.
The Knights return to action tomorrow as they host the Hastings College JV Broncos at 7 p.m. at McDonald-Belton Gymnasisum. The Knights then finish out the week by hosting the Central Community College Raiders (16-4, 1-1 NCCAC) on Saturday Feb. 1 at 3 p.m. The Knights defeated the Broncos in Hastings 82-79 and the Raiders 78-71 in Columbus earlier this year.
Saturday’s game will also be Boy Scout Night at the college as Boy Scout’s will be given free admission and the Knights basketball team will sign autographs after the game.
Both home games will be broadcast live by Coaches Aid and ASBN. A link to all live broadcasted games is available on the Knights webpage at www.npccknights.com. Thursday’s game with Hastings JV will also be broadcast live by ESPN radio 1410 and online.