Tortoise and the hare: a new end

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Dogies faced off against both the tortoise and the hare over the weekend, and despite the vastly different tempo of each game Newcastle found a way to get past both adversaries to take the victory.
On Friday, the Dogies traveled to Douglas to take on the “hare.” The Bearcats enjoyed the number three ranking in the state for 3A last week, so head coach Allen Von Eye and his crew knew the challenge that lay in wait. 
“Douglas tries to play up-tempo and they like to shoot the three, but I thought we did a fabulous job of taking away everything they wanted to do,” Von Eye nodded. “They only put up 15 threes, which is 10 fewer than normal, and that’s because our perimeter defense was pretty solid.”
The Dogie defense in general was solid throughout the contest, evidenced by the fact that Douglas only held a lead for a brief moment early in the second quarter. Other than that Newcastle got hold of the lead and never relinquished it, despite a couple of runs by the Bearcats in the second half.
“Those runs were started by us due to our lack of taking care of the basketball,” Von Eye frowned. “That has become an issue for us, and it’s going to bite us in the tail pretty heavily one of these times because it’s going to cost us a ball game if we don’t start taking care of the basketball.”
Offensively, Von Eye anticipated that Douglas would focus a great deal of attention on Cade Ostenson, and that Dylon Tidyman would not be back to 100 percent after spraining his ankle a week and a half ago. As these are the top scorers for the team, Von Eye knew that the offense may have to come from different contributors.
“I was very pleased to see a lot of guys step up, which is what we’ve been preaching all week,” he nodded. “I thought they did what they needed to do, made some big plays and got the road win over the #3 ranked team. That was a huge quadrant win for us.” 
Indeed the scoring was more evenly distributed than usual on the night. Though Ostenson and Tidyman still led the team with 14 points each, Isaiah Brooks was close behind with 13 and Dylan Talley had 12. Sawyer Roberson contributed four points, Kyle Haslam had two and Peyton Tystad rounded out the scoring with one point.
The Dogies followed up the big road win over the Bearcats by hosting the Wheatland Bulldogs on Saturday, knowing they would have to take on a completely different opponent regarding style of play. Where Douglas was the hare, Wheatland was going to be the tortoise.
“They really want to muddy the game and slow it down,” Von Eye began. “They are a really good defensive team with their zone and they are much improved, and they made us work a lot harder than we had to last year.”
The skill with which the Bulldogs executed their game plan was evident throughout the contest. They were successful in forcing the Dogies to play a slow, half court game, and frustrated the squad by keeping them from running the fast-paced game that is their forte.
Newcastle took an early lead and held it until the last half of the fourth quarter, but Wheatland was able to keep the game within reach, allowing them the opportunity to take a three point lead with time ticking off the clock.
“I told the guys in the fourth quarter when Wheatland took the lead and we were struggling to get anything going offensively that players make plays. We can’t do it for you,” Von Eye nodded. “Then Cade had a couple of big plays down the stretch and then Dylon got that steal that enabled him to shoot free throws at the tail end of regulation to tie us up.”
In the overtime that ensued, the Dogies did what they needed to in order to clinch the 36-31 win, outscoring Wheatland 5-0.
“Conference games are tough, and it wasn’t how we wanted it to look, but we got a win,” Von Eye admitted. “Going into overtime was big for us as well. It was the first time we’ve done that this season, so it was a good learning opportunity for us.”
In a low scoring affair like this one, there isn’t a lot of points being put up by anyone. Ostenson ended the night with 15, Tidyman had 14, Haslam added six and Roberson had one — albeit very important — point late in game to round out the scoring for the Dogies.
Picking up two wins over the weekend broke the streak the Dogies had of splitting contests each week and moved them to 2-1 in the quadrant, 4-2 in the conference and 7-5 overall on the season.
The squad is gearing up for another big weekend as they tip it off with a rematch against the Blazers of Torrington in the Dome on Friday. In their last meeting, Torrington got the better of the Dogies, but Von Eye feels good coming into this contest. On Saturday the team will head to Big Horn to take on a very talented 2A Rams squad in non-conference action.