WildCards pull away from Mustangs late

JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
North Nodaway junior Ridge Clements scans the floor Thursday in Hopkins.

HOPKINS, Mo. — Stewartsville-Osborn came into Hopkins on Thursday night rolling with a 3-1 start to the season after a 19-win last season with that entire core remaining. The WildCards improved to 4-1, but North Nodaway made them earn it.

The WildCards came away with a 54-39 victory, but the Mustangs (1-4; 0-1 275) held a lead late in the third quarter.

“I just saw a little glimpse of what we can really do,” North Nodaway senior Kaeden Nave said. “We’ve had some ups and downs throughout the start of the season. This really got our heads up a little bit and hopefully we can just keep bringing it every game.”

In the second quarter, it appeared as though Stewartsville-Osborn wasn’t going to need to sweat it out with junior Cooper Langley scoring to push the lead to 25-13. The Mustangs responded to close the half with an and-1 from Ridge Clements and a basket from freshman point guard Jackson Keho.

“I’ve been pretty nervous,” Keho said of being a freshman starter. “But I’ve gotten better at handling the pressure of high-school defense.”

North Nodaway whittled the lead down to 27-25 with a 3-pointer from Nave. After trading buckets, freshman Marek Stevens hit a 3-pointer to give the Mustangs their first lead since 1-0 at 30-29.

“We know that we have young guards and other teams know that so we are seeing a lot more pressure than most teams do because we have our bigs that they don’t want us to get the ball to,” North Nodaway coach Jake Hoy said. “Jackson, Marek and Ridge are all getting better and adapting.”

Stewartsville-Osborn came back with a 6-0 run, but Nave hit a 3-pointer to get back within 35-33. The WildCards had a full-court inbounds play with less than two seconds left in the quarter and threw the Hail Mary pass to Ian Saunders who caught it on the wing and fired a 3-pointer at the buzzer to extend the margin to 38-33.

“Those are kinda the key moments of the game,” Nave said. “That shot, once he hit it. When they came out of halftime, their heads were down, but once he hit that shot, momentum for them went way up.”

Saunders hit another 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter. The WildCards hit six 3-pointers during a 25-4 run to extend the lead to 54-34 — before the Mustangs closed the game on a 5-0 run.

“We had all the momentum in the world going in that third quarter and then that buzzer-beater three hits us and we put our heads down because we just hadn’t been in a situation like that,” Hoy said. “That just comes with time, practice and effort — realizing that we have to fight to get the momentum back.”

Nave led the Mustangs with 13 points while Stevens had seven, Blaine Clements had six, Ridge Clements and Keho each had five and Jordan DeLeon had three.

“It comes with him being a great leader this year,” Hoy said of Nave. “I told him at the start of the year that is something that he is going to need to do, being a vocal leader.”

The WildCards had Saunders with 20, Langley with 12 and Jordan Noel with 11.

The Mustangs are on the road next week to close out the pre-Christmas schedule — at North Andrew on Monday, at Northeast Nodaway on Tuesday and at East Harrison on Friday.

“I think it was a good game, so we will try to keep doing what we did next week,” Keho said.