LocalSportsJournal.com
WESTPHALIA – The North Muskegon boys basketball team’s monster season came to a tough conclusion with a 43-40 overtime loss to Pewamo-Westphalia on Tuesday night.
And the final shot, by Kash Pohl, came on an off-balance, desperation 3-pointer as time expired that broke a 40-all tie and sent the Pirate faithful into a frenzy on their home court.
It was a defensive effort as the Norse struggled to generate offense and they trailed 18-17 after two quarters.
“Both teams gave up very few good looks,” said North Muskegon coach Charles Rypstra. “With offense hard to come by, every possession was magnified.”
Pewamo went on a 13-7 scoring run in the third quarter to go up 31-24 heading into the fourth quarter. The Norse managed a 12-5 scoring advantage to tie it up at 36 points and force overtime.
“They just made one more play than us,” said Rypstra.
Adam Dugener led the Norse attack with 15 points, while Jaxon Lisinski and Lamarkis Graham scored 12 and seven points, respectively. T.J. Byard made four blocks.
“You never want the season to end, but it always does, making it hard,” Rypstra said. “But if it wasn’t worth losing then it wouldn’t be worth doing. I’m super proud of my guys and all the effort they put in to get to this point.”
Pewamo-Westphalia was led by Trevor Smith with 13 points and Grady Eklund with nine.
North Muskegon wrapped up the season 24-1.
