North Shore edges Wolves in District 15 hoops action
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
In spite of not seeming to be able to do anything right for most of the game, Watford City very nearly pulled off a huge comeback against North Shore-Plaza last Monday night in boys varsity basketball action.
“We didn’t play very well in the first half of the game,” states Randy Cranston, Wolves’ head coach. “NSP had a lot of open shots and we turned the ball over way too much.”
While the Wolves were able to hold a 17-16 first-quarter lead, North Shore-Plaza dominated the second stanza as the Wildcats outgunned the Wolves, 29-16, to take a 45-33 lead into the lockers at halftime.
With the Wolves trailing by as many as 15 points in the third quarter, it looked like it was going to be a blowout win for North Shore-Plaza.
But Watford City put together a rally that had the hometown crowd sitting on the edge of the bleachers as the Wolves were able to not only erase that deficit, but take a three- point lead with just over a minute left in the game.
Unfortunately for Watford City, NSP was able to regain the lead and pull out a 81-79 win.
Cranston says that Watford City’s sloppy defense played a big part in the loss, which drops the Wolves season record to 2-3.
“NSP shot 32 free throws in the game with 12 of their 18 points in the fourth quarter coming at the line,” stated Cranston. “We will need better efforts, or the efforts like we had in the second half of this game for four quarters, if we want to be contenders in Region 8 this year. Hopefully this loss will serve as a wake-up call to our players.”
Watford City had three players score in double figures in the contest with Tyler Bates leading the Wolves scoring effort with 23 points, while Shawn Fulwider and Cole Rolfsrud ended the game with 18 and 16 points, respectively.
Rounding out the scoring for the Wolves was Lucas Nicholson with seven points, Reid Brown with six points, Dustin Kleppen with three points, while Brice Brenno, Michael Schulz and Mitchell Liebel ended the game with two points each.
NSP 16 45 63 81
Watford City 17 33 52 79