By BRYAN GASKINS
For the second straight game, the Northwestern boys basketball team faced a double-digit deficit in the opening quarter.
This time, the Purple Tigers climbed out of the hole and met the challenge.
Northwestern rallied from a 13-0 deficit to beat Class 2A No. 7-ranked Carroll 49-47 in overtime Friday night, giving the visiting Cougars their first loss following a school-record 10-0 start.
Northwestern, which had a six-game winning streak snapped Tuesday at North Miami, improved to 8-4. Northwestern trailed 33-13 after the opening quarter against North Miami and never recovered.
“I thought the boys really sucked it up defensively [Friday],” Northwestern coach Jim Gish said. “They knew we had to get some crucial stops to be able to play with Carroll and we got those stops.”
Carroll, meanwhile, saw its perfect start come to an end in difficult fashion. Foul trouble dogged the Cougars’ top two scorers, Riley Eller and Adam Spesard, nearly throughout and a migraine headache knocked Drew Yoder from the game following a terrific first half that saw him score 11 points. The Cougars hurt themselves with shaky free throw shooting, especially in the first half.
Also, the Cougars received a tough break at the end of regulation. Spesard grabbed a defensive rebound and was fouled, but the officials huddled and declared the foul came after time had expired.
“Without your top two scorers, any team is probably going to find it hard to make up those points. It just messes up the flow of the game and we couldn’t recover,” Carroll coach Jeff Hodson said. “We did a good job of keeping our composure, I felt. It didn’t seem like things went well for us as far as the momentum, but we hung in there and we didn’t lose our composure.”
After Carroll bolted to its 13-0 lead, Northwestern chipped away to within 17-9 by the end of the quarter and to within 30-25 by halftime. The Tigers opened the second half with a 7-0 run to take their first lead and from there, the teams battled back and forth the rest of the way.
The Tigers held a 43-40 advantage late in the fourth quarter, but the Cougars’ Kyle Geheb knotted the score with a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 29 seconds remaining. In the overtime, Brayden Merrell and Zech Sanders scored transition baskets to give the Tigers a quick 47-43 lead. Spesard scored a post basket and later hit two free throws to knot the score with :53.1 left.
The Tigers showed good patience in working for a high-percentage shot. Merrell eventually found Jared Treadway inside and Treadway converted the game-winning basket at :18.
“I thought it was pretty crucial down the stretch that we had [post players] Jimmy McKee and Jared Treadway in the game at the same time. They’re pretty hard to guard in the post area once they catch,” Gish said. “Tread has some awfully soft hands. I thought Brayden made a nice pass to him and he laid it in,
“Then defensively, I thought we did a good job of dropping down and challenging things on the back side.”
Geheb missed a 3-pointer from the corner in the closing seconds. Spesard grabbed the offensive rebound and went back up for a potential tying basket, but the Tigers blocked his shot out of bounds. The officials ruled time had expired — much to the chagrin of Hodson and the Cougars.
Merrell, Sanders and backup guard Kylan Dubbels scored 11 points apiece for the Tigers and Treadway offered 10 points. McKee and Treadway combined for 17 rebounds to lead the Tigers to a decisive 35-24 advantage.
Dubbels knocked down 3 of 4 shots from 3-point range, including 2 of 2 in the second quarter to help the Tigers rally from their early hole.
“I think the difference in this part of our season and the beginning is we were counting so much on Brayden and Zech [for scoring] in the beginning that when people took them away from us, it made things pretty difficult for us,” Gish said. “In this game, I see we had four guys in double figures. When you have four guys in double figures, you become pretty hard to guard.”
Yoder scored a Carroll-high 11 points, all in the first half. He opened the game with a pair of 3-pointers to key the 13-0 opening run. Brad Benson added eight points off the bench.
The Cougars finished 5 of 13 from the free throw line after going just 2 of 9 in the first half. The Tigers had their own problems at the line, making just 4 of 12.
