By Rusty Nixon
Correspondent
PLYMOUTH – Opening night turned into a nightmare for Plymouth’s Pilgrims as a red hot night from NorthWood’s guard tandem turned into a 74-68 loss.
Sophomore Vince Miranda and junior point guard Braxton Linville scored 29 and 18 points respectively and Dakiyron Fox added 17 more as the Panthers rode their guard play to a big NLC opener at Plymouth.
“From the opening tip it was a frustrating night,” said Plymouth head coach Ryan Bales. “We just lacked a lot of energy. Let’s face it their guards outplayed our guards and they picked us apart. It wasn’t all our guards fault. It’s a team effort whether we win or lose, we just didn’t have an answer for dribble penetration. It seemed like we were a step slow all night.”
“We had some chances early to take some charges to get some earlier help. I haven’t watched film yet but it looked to me like we were just waiting for them to make a play instead of going to make a play ourselves.”
Even with the Panther effort, foul trouble on a couple key players and falling behind quickly by as much as 10, the Pilgrims were easily within striking distance at the half time break.
“It’s still a five point game at the half and I felt like we were far from our best yet it’s a two possession game at halftime,” said Bales. “We tried to change the mentality and say we’ve just got to find a way to be aggressive and we just never really got that.”
The Pilgrims got a great lift from their bench in the second quarter with some key performances from several players keeping Plymouth in the fight.
“With Nick (Felke) being in foul trouble I thought Jack (Barron) did a really good job handling the ball,” said Bales. “Matt Friar gave us good minutes, Max Holloway, those three – very proud of them – they came in and gave us a spark and did some good things for us.”
Tyler England led the Pilgrims with 22 points adding four rebounds in the middle.
“Tyler did a great job in there he battled really hard and got a lot of post touches and played really well,” said Bales. “I thought we had a stretch where we started the third quarter off really well, got it inside and then was a stretch where we took five straight three’s and just not very good execution. That’s a frustrating night.”
NorthWood is now 6-1 on the year, Plymouth is 4-2 and is on the road at South Bend Riley next week.
Score by Quarters
NorthWood 19 30 51 74
Plymouth 12 25 34 68
NorthWood (74) – Linville 6 5-7 18, Zurcher 1 0-2 3, Miranda 9 8-9 29, Sellers 0 0-0 0, Fox 7 3-5 17, Dutkowski 2 0-0 4, Bilinski 2 0-0 4, Simpson 1 0-0 3. Totals 26 16-23 74.
Plymouth (68) – Barron 3 0-0 9, Eveland 0 0-0 0, Yoder 3 4-4 12, Felke 3 3-3 11, Davidson 0 0-0 0, Holloway 0 0-0 0, Anders 3 5-8 11, Friar 1 1-2 3, England 9 4-6 22. Totals 22 17-23 68.
3 Pt. FG – NorthWood 6-11 (Miranda 3), Plymouth 7-18 (Barron 3).
Rebounds – NorthWood 16 (Miranda 6), Plymouth 21 (Anders 7).
Assists – NorthWood 7 (Linville 6), Plymouth 6 (Barron, Felke, England 2).
Steals – NorthWood 8 (Miranda 3), Plymouth 4 (Yoder 3).
Turnovers – NorthWood 5, Plymouth 12.
Fouls (Fouled out) – NorthWood 18, Plymouth 23 (Anders, England).
