Semoball

Holcomb boys basketball edges Gideon 47-42 in Tri-County Conference semifinal

Photo by Dustin Ward, staff
Gideon's Payton Woodard (1) and Holcomb's Nate Rhew eye a free throw in a semifinal of the Tri-County Conference varsity boys basketball tournament Saturday at Holcomb High School.

HOLCOMB - The top-seed Holcomb Hornets outlasted the No. 5 seeded Gideon Bulldogs 47-42 in the first semifinal of the Tri-County Conference varsity boys basketball tournament Saturday at Holcomb High School.

“Credit Gideon for giving us a tough game,” Holcomb coach Michael Snider said. “They did a good job of getting us out of our game plan early on. We were able to get a couple shots ahead of them late but you could tell we hadn’t played a game or practiced all week. We were very fortunate enough to find a way to get a win but Gideon did a job of making it tough on us tonight.”

Gideon nearly caught Holcomb several times in the closing minutest.

Payton Woodard hit a 2-pointer to cut Holcomb’s lead to 38-37 with 2:20 left. Gideon missed a couple of shots on its following possessions that would have put it up by one. Dylan Bradshaw followed with a clutch 3-pointer to pad Holcomb’s lead back to 41-37 with 55 seconds left and the Hornets made 6 of 8 free throws after Bradshaw’s trey to seal a win..

“We’ve been harping on making free throws,” Snider said. “Luckily, we got the guys we wanted to the line late and they were able to knock down some shots.”

Gideon got off to a good start as it built a 8-4 lead by the end of the first quarter. Holcomb moved ahead 20-18 by halftime and continued to lead 32-30 at the end of the third quarter.

Gideon moved ahead again 35-34 with 4:51 left in regulation but was unable to hang on for a second victory in the tournament after upsetting No. 4 seeded Risco 61-31 in a quarterfinal earlier in the week.

“Our kids have really bought in over the last few weeks,” Gideon coach Jeremy Walker said. “We want to compete and try to win every game we play. I thought we did that again tonight.”

Holcomb junior Nate Rhew, who tallied a team-high 21 points, scored the 1,000th point of his high school career in the first half.

“He was three points away from 1,000 coming in,” Snider said. “We tried to keep it from him but I’m sure he probably knew about it. I couldn’t be more happy for him. You are talking about a guy that has made some changes to his game to help our team and all the credit in the world should go to a guy like that. He’s a great player. I’m happy he is on our team and I think our kids are as well.”

Woodard paced Gideon with 19 points. Brevin Vires also scored in double digits with 11 points for the Bulldogs.

“It may be difficult with the crazy weather coming but he hope we can continue to get games in moving forward with the way our guyshave been playing the last couple week,” Walker said.

No. 1 Holcomb 47, No. 5 Gideon 42

Gideon

Holcomb4161215-47
GIDEON8101212-42
HOLCOMB (47) - Dylan Bradshaw 7, Payton McNabb 3, CA Heuring 2, Zander Burke 7, Eli Bader 4, Nate Rhew 21, Jacob Crittendon 3. FG 15, FT 12/19, F 10. (3-pointers: Rhew 3, Crittendon 1, Bradshaw 1; Fouled out: None.)

GIDEON (42) - Brevin Vires 11, Payton Woodard 19, Zach Swift 2, Dawson Huckabee 3, Dalton Manning 7. FG 17, FT 6/8, F 17. (3-pointers: Huckabee 1, Vires 1; Fouled out: None.)

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