NCS (12-11) improved to 6-4 in district, while St. Helena Central (14-9) slipped to 6-5 in district play.
NCS’ Timmy Broussard and Jacob Draffen delivered six points each for the Wolverines, while Michael Behlar gave the Wolverines some solid minutes with five points. Caleb Cherry added four points and Carter Fitzgerald dropped in three.
 Northlake Christian School’s Josh Seale launches a jumper defended by St. Helena Central’s Ryan Byrd in Tuesday’s district game at NCS. (Staff Photo by Mike Pervel) |
NCS built a 13-7 first quarter advantage and the Wolverines’ defense came up big as they held the Hawks scoreless in the second period. The Wolverines tallied 14 unanswered points to take a 27-7 halftime lead.
NCS coach Andy Allen said his club was able to hang on for the victory despite a poor second half.
“The second half was ugly, but the first half was really good for us. Probably one of the better halves we have played putting offense and defense together. I just had a funny feeling from the start of the second half. Something was off with us offensively,” Allen said.
“Defense has won us just about every game without us blowing anyone out of the gym scoring wise. To give up just 35 points to those guys (St. Helena Central) is not bad at all. We really locked them down early on, which kind of set the tone for the rest of the game. They have a couple of really good players so we knew they were going to start making some shots,” Allen added.
Seale, the Wolverines’ senior guard, said St. Helena Central was able to pick up their defensive pressure in the second half.
“I guess we panicked a little bit. We have to work on that. In other games we have been able to deal with that pretty well, but for some reason this time we turned it over a little too much,” Seale said.
The Wolverines committed 12 turnovers in the second half, including a critical eight in the fourth quarter.
Seale said the Wolverines played great defense in the first half.
“We held their good shooter No. 2 (Ryan Byrd) to only two points in the first half. Derek Williams did a great job on him not letting him get too many open shots. We worked together as a team,” he said.
St. Helena Central stepped up its game in the third quarter reeling off 10 consecutive points cutting the Wolverines lead in half getting back into the contest, 27-17 with 2:43 left in the third period. Byrd connected on two 3-pointers and Watson added two baskets with Butler scoring a hoop and converting a free throw to get the Hawks back into it.
NCS went cold in the third quarter scoring just five points on a trey by Williams and a basket by Seale, but still led 32-20 going into the fourth quarter.
St. Helena Central did its best to fight back in the final period. The Hawks came out strong to open the fourth quarter scoring the first four points to make it a 32-24 contest. NCS’ Cherry hit a basket to counter boosting the Wolverines’ lead back to 10 with 5:22 left.
The Wolverines were able to hold on making the most of their free throw opportunities clicking on 9-of-14 attempts from the line. Williams drained 4-of-5 attempts, while Seale canned 2-of-2 and Fitzgerald made 2-of-4 at the charity stripe.
St. Helena Central coach Roy Hill talked about his club’s poor first half.
“We had some discipline issues at the start of the game with some of our starters on the pine. When they did hit the floor, they just couldn’t get it going. When they decided to turn it on, we had already dug too deep of a hole to come back,” Hill said.
“You call it defending home court and Northlake was able to take advantage. They stepped and hit free throws to pull off the victory,” Hill added.
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