To say that Northshore’s first-district victory, a 54-51 win over Ponchatoula last Friday, was a memorable one, is an understatement.

Two weeks ago, Art Tolis, father of Northshore first-year coach Joey Tolis, lost his bout to multiple myeloma, which is a form of bone cancer and affects your platelets in the bloodstram, at the age of 79. Last Friday, Art was buried and the entire team attended the funeral.

“For my whole team to come in together was just very moving,” Tolis said. “It just felt great. The support was incredible.”

Northshore coach Joey Tolis (right) works with Jacob Pouncey (left) on a drill during Wednesday’s practice at Northshore. (Staff Photo by Chris Kinkaid)

Art Tolis spent three years in the Army and fought in Korea. Art Tolis spent a lot of his life involved with basketball. He was an all-state player in high school and played at George Washington University.

He coached on the high school and college level. He preceded Tim Floyd as the basketball coach at UNO.

Joey Tolis said the service at Honaker Funeral Home in Slidell was beautiful. Since Art was in the Army, they played “Taps” and had the gun salute.

The NHS basketball team left for Ponchatoula at 3 p.m. and Tolis headed over at 5. He drove by himself so he could spend some more time with his family.

Tolis could’ve missed the game, but he said his dad would want him to go.

“He would not have wanted me to miss that game period because he was such a giving person and cared so much about other people. If he could have spoke from his grave, he would’ve said, ‘you need to go to the game.’ That’s what he would’ve said. ‘You need to be there for the kids and you need to go to that game.’ So there was no way I was going to miss it,” Tolis said.

As he was about to leave, Tolis got a text message from one of his players, sophomore Michael Lewis.

“It said, ‘coach, we’re going to win the game for you tonight. For you and your dad,’” Tolis said.

Tolis said he didn’t know how exactly to respond to it at first, so he went straight from the heart.

“I told him the truth. ‘I believe in y’all,’” Tolis said.

Tolis said as he was getting that text, he said he saw the strangest thing, two huge rainbows right over his parents’ house.

Northshore, who was 7-16 overall and 2-7 in league play at press time, entered Friday’s game at 5-16 overall and 0-7 in district. Tolis said he arrived at about 6 p.m.

“It was very emotional coaching the game and thinking about that we had basically just buried my father. So every-single bucket was emotional. It was crazy,” Tolis said. “Every layup, every little free throw and then for us to battle back, it just showed so much mental toughness.”

The Panthers trailed most of the contest and had an uphill climb. They ended up down 51-46 with 2:20 remaining in the fourth quarter.

But Brad Hewitt hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 51-51 and Lewis got an offensive rebound and scored what turned out to be the game-winning bucket. He said it was his first game-winning shot.

“I guess I got in the lane faster, got the ball and put it back,” Lewis said.

Lewis also said he talked to the players about picking it up, playing hard defense and getting turnovers.

Tolis said that he was proud of his team.

“I know that we’ve got talent on this team,” Tolis said. “For them to come together like that, 0-7 (in district) and to go into Ponchatoula and win is something that probably has never been done. I don’t know for sure, but I would bet that an 0-7 team has never gone into Ponchatoula and won, ever.”

For the contest, Hewitt scored 14 points, while Michael Lewis tallied 10 points and eight rebounds. Brandon Eddlestone posted eight points and eight rebounds. Chandler Brown added seven points, while Dave Williams totaled six.