Lions Put A Scare into Cards

Team battles back but runs out of time.

Story and photos by Ken DeLaat

Big Rapids 79 Newaygo 74

Early on the Cards jumped out to a 9-4 lead but Caris Nelson banged in two in a row then off a steal he rifled a pass to Remy Wells and suddenly the Lions held the lead 10-9. Wells hit again and after a BR bucket Nelson snaked another pretty pass to Long who canned a triple to put Newaygo up 15-11. Grant Harkness matched a Cardinal three pointer but a three and a two put the Cards up one then Wells knocked down another for 2 and Mason Dunn finished the scoring for the period and the first ended with the visitors up 21-20.

The team exchanged blows to begin the second but a pair of threes from Dawson Dunn gave the Cards a 7 point spread. Harkness and Wells answered with distance shots to cut the lead to one. When the halftime buzzer sounded it was 44-40 Cards.

Nelson dropped a triple to begin the second half and make it a one point game but the momentum turned toward the Cardinals who outscored the Lions 20-6 with Decker accounting for the Newaygo points with a pair of threes.

Down 14 to the league leading and #10 D2 team would put a lot of teams on their heels. But this group of Lions aren't those teams. They still had some fight left and behind a spirited team effort they clawed their way back into the game and when Nelson launched a seemingly off balance shot from somewhere in the next county and it burned the nets, suddenly making it a 3 point, one possession game. The clock was down to 11 seconds however and the Lions were forced to send the Cards to the charity stripe in hopes of getting a few misses. Those misses didn’t come and despite putting a scare into the high flying Cardinals, Newaygo fell just a bit short.

From this writer’s seat it seemed as though the Lions just ran out of time. The momentum had shifted and there was a raucous home crowd behind the surging team, and they seemed to have the Cards on their heels but in the end, they simply didn't have enough clock to get the job done.

Decker led a balanced scoring attack with 19 points. Nelson canned 3 from beyond the arc and finished with 17 while Long knifed through the defense for 8 of his 15 points and added a pair of threes. Wells counted 9 including 7 key points in the first half and Grant Harkness connected twice from distance and finished with 8 points.
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Things don’t get any easier for Newaygo (6-3, 11-7) as they will travel to Hart Wednesday to face another state ranked team,  the undefeated Pirates from the WMC.