Bearcats drop back-and-forth battle against Griffons
JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
Northwest senior Emorie Knox drives to the basket on Tuesday night in Bearcat Arena.
MARYVILLE, Mo. — Missouri Western has made strides this season and climbed to a No. 17 ranking in the D2CSC poll this week. The Bearcats on the other hand came into Tuesday night’s MIAA opener at 1-5 and still finding its way in the first year of the Matt Keeley era.
Tuesday was a much more evenly matched basketball game than the records and rankings would indicate with the Griffons (8-1; 1-0 MIAA) surviving a 70-66 scare from Northwest Missouri State (1-6; 0-1 MIAA) in Bearcat Arena.
True freshman Marcus Glock got Northwest going in the first half after Western built a 6-0 lead. Glock’s third 3-pointer of the night put Northwest in front with a 16-15 lead.
“We’ve seen him do that as a high school senior and a state champion, as well as through our practices, so it was great to see him breakthrough,” Keeley said.
A 10-0 Griffon run made it 30-20 with 6:44 left in the half. A 3-point play by senior Spencer Schomers got the Bearcats back within 35-32 with 96 seconds left in the half.
Luke Moustakas tied the game at 37 three minutes into the second half. Northwest leaned on its post players with Jack Ratigan scoring twice and Trey Moala adding another for a 43-39 lead.
“It was just getting to what we planned to get and we executed well,” Ratigan said.
Western star Zane Nelson had a personal 6-0 run and Devin Butler had a 5-0 run as the Griffons built a 55-44 lead. Northwest immediately fought back with a 8-0 run capped by a Ratigan layup to slice it to 55-52.
“Jack and Trey provided great rim pressure tonight with hard roles,” Keeley said. “I thought that they rolled hard.”
After a Nelson jumper, Emorie Knox had a 3-pointer and Ratigan had a jumper to tie the game at 57 with 4:52 left. Western point guard Zion Swader struggled mightily all night with a negative-16 plus-minus, the only negative on the team. But with 2:37 left, Swader hit a clutch 3-pointer for put the Griffons up 67-59.
The Bearcats locked in defensively from there and went on a 7-0 run with Ratigan scoring with 39 seconds left.
Nelson proved why he is one of the nation’s top players early this season and answered with the game-sealing step-back 3-pointer over Schomers with four seconds left for the 70-66 final score.
“Zane made a heck of a play on that last possession because I thought that Spencer was right there,” Keeley said. “A step-back three and a big-time winning play out of Zane.”
Nelson finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two steals. Swader added 13 points.
“He just has a lot of confidence with the ball,” Bearcat senior Byron Alexander said. “If you give him a little bit of space, he will shoot it and he is confident that it will go in. I think a lot of their players were confident in his game too, so they just let him do his thing.”
Northwest was led by career highs for Ratigan with 18 and Glock with 15 on 4-of-4 overall shooting, 3-for-3 from 3 and 4-of-4 from the foul line. Ratigan was 8-for-10 from the field.
Schomers added 10 points and was a team-high plus-17 when in the game, but foul trouble limited him to 30 minutes.
“Having a conversation with him on the road in the hotel room, he made the mistake of mentioning to us that early in his career, he guarded Trevor (Hudgins) as a scout-team guy,” Keeley said. “… If you guarded that dude for two or three years or however long, we aren’t afraid to thrown him on a matchup.”
The Bearcats were able to get their most experienced player, Byron Alexander, back from injury. It was only his second game of the season.
“It was a nice feeling,” Alexander said. “I’m thankful for all the people who came to support us.”
Northwest has its first MIAA road trip on Thursday when the team heads to Emporia State.
“These guys are good dudes who care, play hard and work hard,” Keeley said. “As long as they will stay with that and not get defeated by the record or early results here, we will keep getting better.”
