Northwest Girls Come Back To Defeat McCook, 49-47

(Grand Island, NE) - After a solid first half for the Northwest girls followed by a rough and rocky third quarter the Vikings had a rally in the fourth for a 49-47 win over McCook in the Class Sub District 7 final at Northwest High School. 

The Vikings would get off to a good start in the first with an early 5-0 lead. Northwest would outscore the Bison 16-12 in the first and 16-14 in the 2nd quarter to lead 32-26. The Vikings would can six three-pointers in the first half. 

The third quarter would be a totally different story. McCook would score 16 points to Northwest's 2. The Vikings would have massive turnover problems giving it up a total of 12 times in the period. The Vikings would have 23 turnovers in the game. 

Northwest would trail 42-34 going into the 4th quarter and outscore McCook 15-5 in the final period. The turning point for Northwest was down the final three minutes of the game. A Jolie O'Hara three-pointer would make it a one-point lead for McCook with 3:01 left in the game, 47-46. One minute later at the 2:01 mark of the fourth quarter, Laiken Dorsey would give the Vikings the lead for good as the junior would stick a left-corner three-pointer in front of the Northwest bench to give the Vikings a 49-47 lead. 

McCook would get a chance to tie or win the game with four seconds left. Dorsey would miss two free throws keeping the game at 49-47 Northwest. The Bison would inbounds the basketball with the length of the floor to go, get a pass, and a time-out just before mid-court. McCook would then get another inbound advancing it past mid-court. A Northwest fou, that would only be the Viking's third foul of the quarter would stop play and give McCook another inbounds. With 1.4 seconds left an inbounds pass to Paige Bortner for McCook at the top of the key, Bortner would then flip it to Alice Weimer to shoot a three-pointer but it came up short as time expired giving the Vikings the win.

McCook's season comes to an end with a 15-10 record. Northwest is now 17-8 and advances to a district final on Saturday, March 1st with the opponent to be announced by the NSAA. The winner of the district final will advance to the girl's Class B state tournament in Lincoln.  

Northwest   16  16  2  15  - 49 

McCook       12  14  16  5 - 47 

Viking Scoring: O'Hara 12 - Dorsey 13 - R.McIntyre 12 - E.Keller 2 - E.McIntyre 6 - Heikes 2 - Burhman 2 

Bison Scoring: Gillen 11 - Crawford 11 - Walgren 7 - Bortner 9 - Weimer 9