By Dennis Sharkey / Citizen Staff
The North Platte girls’ basketball team had little trouble blazing through the KCI Conference Tournament last week.
Head Coach Clay Atteberry told the Platte County Citizen after the championship game on Saturday, Dec. 14, at East-Buch High School that his team was locked in all week. Atteberry said he didn’t have to say much to his team to motivate them.
“We just did a really good job of being focused all week,” Atteberry said. “I thought we took many of the teams’ best shots this week, which you can expect when you’re the No. 1 seed, and our girls handled that. They battled through adversity all week long, and they were locked in. They had their eyes on a goal, and they knew they were going to do whatever it takes to get there, and that’s exactly what they did.”
North Platte guard Brianna BeBord was fouled hard going to the basket versus Mid-Buch.
The Panthers took down a good Mid-Buchanan team 69-46 in Saturday’s championship game but needed to come from behind after a fast start by the Dragons. A few minutes into the contest, North Platte was trailing 10-3 when the offense got going. Atteberry said Mid-Buch was ready for what the Panthers were throwing at them early.
“That team is really good offensively, and that worried me at the very start when they got going,” Atteberry said. “We kind of mixed things up defensively, and they’re a young group and moving forward has a lot of potential ahead of them, and they have some really good basketball players over there. They weren’t scared of us or anything, and they came out guns blazing, gave us their best shot, and when you’re hot on offense, that helps things.”
North Platte got going behind some hot shooting of its own behind its two guards, Kylee Griswold and point guard Brianna DeBord. Atteberry was happy to see his guard break out of a shooting funk.
“I’m happy to see Brianna DeBord go through that,” Atteberry said. “She had been tweaking her shot a little bit and kind of having some issues with it, but she clearly got it going tonight and Kylee Griswold as well.”
Senior forward Lindsay Ramsey made a strong drive to the hoop versus Mid-Buch.
Down the stretch, the outside shot opened up even more as the Panthers were able to pound the ball inside with Lindsay Ramsey, Kate Wolf, and Camryn Kersten. Atteberry said it was a total team effort and was especially pleased with his bench and specifically talked about sophomore guard Emily Goodlet.
“Owning the paint in there tonight, it was a true team effort, and we had a lot of contributions from a lot of people,” Atteberry said. “Emily Goodlet coming in and recognizing a trap and making a great pass, that’s hard to do when you’re coming off the bench.”
The Panthers had little trouble advancing to the championship game. North Platte beat rival West Platte 51-16 in the semifinal that was played on Thursday, Dec. 12, and they beat Penney in the opening round 80-26.
In the championship game, the Panthers were led by DeBord, who led all scorers with 27 points, including six three-point baskets. Ramsey was a monster in the paint and had 14 points. Griswold had nine points, which all came via the long ball, with freshman guard Addison Skala chipping in eight points. Junior guard Ally Smith had seven points, including two three-point baskets.
Senior guard Kylee Griswold connected on three three-point shots versus Mid-Buch.
North Platte is now 6-0 to start the season which includes a 63-39 win over a 6-1 Lone Jack team on Dec. 5. The Panthers’ low mark offensively came against West Platte otherwise the North Platte offense has scored at least 60 points in each game and is adveraging more than 66 points per game.
The Panthers will take on West Platte Friday night at home in a KCI Conference game.
