The No. 10 state-ranked North Platte boys basketball team took a critical step towards winning a KCI Conference championship on Jan. 9, when they went on the road in Weston to overcome a 12-point deficit for a 53-50 overtime win against West Platte.
North Platte junior Jase Smith opened the game with a 3-pointer, but West Platte immediately answered by going on a 9-0 run to take a 9-3 lead. North Platte eventually reestablished itself, cutting the lead down to one and trailing 13-10 after the first quarter.
Another big run from West Platte, this time a 10-3 run, put North Platte behind double-digits for the first time of the evening. Again, the Panthers responded well, going on an 11-3 run to end the first half as they trailed 26-24 going into the locker rooms.
After a 14-point first half, West Platte senior Drake Montez had his biggest quarter after halftime by scoring 14 more in the third quarter alone. He single-handedly led the charge in extending the Blue Jays’ lead out to 12 points with more than three minutes remaining in the third, but the Panthers began their comeback bid with free throws from Smith and an old-fashioned 3-point play from Dylan Armstrong cut the deficit down to 40-33 going into the fourth.
“Chip away at it,” North Platte head coach Braydn Kemper said. “You can’t make it up on one play; there’s no 14-point play, there’s no 12-point play. Take it piece-by-piece, possession-by-possession, rebound-by-rebound, and we’ll get back in it.”
North Platte looked upon four scorers to complete the comeback in the fourth quarter, even taking a 44-43 lead when Isaac Wright scored to give the Panthers their first lead since the opening bucket of the night. The lead was short-lived as West Platte junior Mark Sanders nailed his third 3-pointer of the night to put the Blue Jays up 46-44 until Smith scored to tie it at 46-46 on a drive with just over a minute remaining.
West Platte got some looks late, getting two in the same possession after North Platte tied it and forced a turnover that eventually put the game in Montez’s hands as time expired, but his 3-point attempt missed.
In overtime, Montez ended his scoring drought, last scoring in the third quarter, with four points quickly out of the gate, giving West Platte a 50-48 lead. Smith had an answer once again for North Platte, forcing his way into the paint to tie it up at 50-50.
Jase Smith brings the ball up the court in North Platte’s come-from-behind road victory.
With 50 seconds remaining, Jase got himself to the free-throw line with a chance to put North Platte ahead. After missing the first, he refocused himself and knocked down the second attempt to give the Panthers a 51-50 lead.
“I practice those all the time,” Smith said. “I missed it, and I was like, ‘I should hit that,’ but I trusted our defense to get a stop, and we did.”
North Platte’s zone defense forced West Platte to be cautious in their final possession, melting 47 seconds off the clock without a shot before a Blue Jay pass went into the West Platte bench with 3.5 seconds left. On the in-bounds play, North Platte launched it long to kill off the final seconds and score another bucket to secure a 53-50 road win.
“Rallying the team together to come back, I think, is going to be huge for us moving forward,” Kemper said. “Whenever somebody goes down, or something happens, we can step up — next man up — and we can continue to play.”
West Platte senior guard Drake Montez drives towards the basket against North Platte on Jan. 9 in Weston.
Kemper spoke highly of Montez, who finished the night with 30 points, followed by Sanders’ 11-point performance. Smith concluded the night with 19 points for North Platte, followed by Brenden Matt’s 13 points in the first half.
“We were down the entire game,” North Platte junior Jase Smith said. “We were getting in our heads. Then at the end, we started scoring and got into their heads.”
North Platte improved to 2-0 in conference play and 11-1 overall, their best start in recent history. The Panthers’ hopes of competing for a KCI Conference regular-season title are well alive, clearing a major hurdle in Weston.
“We’ve still got a lot of games left, but this helps us maintain the force of we control our own path,” Kemper said. “We’re just really excited about that.”
Next up for North Platte is the Kearney Classic, with matchups against Platte County on Jan. 14 and Kearney on Jan. 15. The Panthers host North Andrew on Jan. 20 before another big conference clash against No. 3 state-ranked Mid-Buchanan on Jan. 23.