MURFREESBORO – North Greene struggled to get shots to fall on Wednesday morning against a long and quick Humboldt defense, and as a result the Huskies saw both their 22-game win streak and season come to an end in a 54-35 loss at the Class 1A State Tournament.
“When it came down to it they were just a little bit quicker to everything than we were,” North Greene coach Sam Tarlton said. “Sometimes you get in games like this and in the third quarter you feel like you’re in it, then turnovers take over. We knew we had to keep them out of transition, we couldn’t turn it over and we had to keep them off the offensive glass. I think we were ok at those things, but we had a hard time scoring. Sometimes you can’t control that. But at the end of the day I’m proud of these kids.”
The Vikings, like their Nordic namesakes, were big, strong and could strike with quickness when given the opportunity. Eventually that wore on the Huskies as they committed nine second-half turnovers that allowed the margin to get away from them late.
The loss meant North Greene’s stay in Murfreesboro was short lived, but it was a trip that few would have thought possible in mid-December. The Huskies started the season having to replace the best scorer in program history in Jason Britton. Just a couple weeks into the season Bennett McLain, North Greene’s top returning player, went down with a season-ending injury. The Huskies had to change their identity, but they bought into coach Tarlton’s game plan and found a way to make a run no one would have predicted.
“After Bennett went down at Grainger over Thanksgiving coach (Arnold) Loftis said ‘I don’t know how we are going to win 15 games,’” Tarlton said. “This group won 30. They won the district, they won the region, they won 22 straight, and they made it to Murfreesboro. I think that tells you a lot about what kind of guys we have. There was a time two or three years ago that I don’t know that I was enjoying doing this, but this group has made me enjoy it again. They are a great group. These guys expected to be down here, and they worked at it. We had to change who we are in the middle of the season, but these guys figured out what worked. These guys bought into those things we had to do, and they brought it every single day.”
North Greene hung around early behind eight first-quarter points from Tyler Britton. With 2:37 left in the opening period Lawson Davenport dropped a pass back to Britton and he fired in a triple from the top of the key to even the score at 8-8.
Humboldt finished the period on a 7-1 run that included four points from Tyon Campbell as it took a 15-9 lead.
The Vikings’ lead grew 21-11 before North Greene could find a little bit of an offensive rhythm. Lance Carrico started things for the Huskies with a triple from the wing, and when Thomas Darnell went strong through the paint for a layup Humboldt’s lead was down to 21-18.
The Vikings then began turn up the tempo and in a 20 second span Darion Taylor got loose for a transition layup and then he woke up the morning crowd with a breakaway dunk that pushed the lead to 27-18 with 2:11 left in the first half.
The Vikings went to halftime leading 31-21.
In the third quarter Humboldt slowed down its offense and moved the ball around until it found a look it liked. The first possession of the second half took 1:11 and ended with Taylor dropping in a turnaround from the block.
Much of the period was spent with the teams trading buckets, but with 54 seconds left Darion Taylor swiped the ball at midcourt and turned it into a slam dunk. Carrico quickly answered with a triple for the Huskies, but they trailed 44-30 at the close of the third quarter.
Early in the fourth quarter Key’vontay Wedley scored off a steal and Kendrick Taylor put back a miss to stretch the Vikings’ lead to 51-30. It took almost four minutes for North Greene to score when Yeshua Vaught tapped one off the glass through contact and turned it into three points the old-fashioned way.
“Their length and quickness is something we can’t replicate in practice,” Tarlton said. “They put a lot of pressure on us, and we just weren’t good enough offensively to win today. Sometimes its just black and white, you’re good enough or you’re not. Scoring 35 just isn’t going to be good enough to win.”
A jumper in the lane by Havoc Fair was the only other make the Huskies could muster in the period as Humboldt moved on with a 54-35 win.
Carrico led North Greene with 11 points and Britton put in 10 points. Darnell had eight points and four rebounds.
Kendrick Taylor scored 13 points for Humboldt and Darion Taylor had 12 points.
North Greene finishes the year with a 30-5 record. Wednesday’s loss was its first since December 19.
