Carrington entered the District 7 tournament at the Devils Lake Sports Center as the top seed and was expected to have a relatively easy time in advancing through the tournament and into the region tournament.
Someone forgot to tell that to Wells County.
The Bears pushed the powerful Cardinals to the limit before dropping a 39-37 decision in the semifinal round Monday.
The surviving Cardinals will play New Rockford-Sheyenne in Tuesday’s championship game.
Wells County will meet Lakota-Adams-Edmore, while Warwick will take on Harvey in region-qualifying games.
Carrington, which entered the tournament with a 17-2 record, took a 14-6 lead after the first eight minutes and it appeared the Cardinals would have little trouble with an undersized Wells County team.
But the Bears hung around. They trailed by just 22-18 at halftime and made things exciting down the stretch.
Trailing 38-28 with just 5:02 left in the game, Wells County held the Cardinals to just one free throw the rest of the way, while closing the gap.
The Cardinals made things difficult on themselves by missing the front end of a pair of bonus situations in the final 21 seconds.
It was not until Kelby Houchin’s shot with 10 seconds left hit the front end of the rim and bounced away that Wells County saw its upset bid come up just short.
“We had our chances,” Wells County coach Chad Faul said. “That’s all we can ask.”
Monday’s outcome was a far cry from the regular season meeting between the two schools and forced some changes in Faul’s approach.
“(Carrington) is a hard team to defend,” said Faul, whose team dropped a 54-29 decision to the Cardinals earlier this season. “We knew we had to play zone and our guys bought into that philosophy and played a terrific game.”
Devin Barton, the focus of Faul’s defensive strategy, was held to just 10 points and was the lone Carrington player to reach double figures.
Kolten Knodel and Logan Neumiller netted 12 and 10 points, respectively, to lead the Bears.
Wells County 6 12 10 9 – 37
Carrington 14 8 12 5 – 39
Wells County (37): Kolten Knodel 12, Logan Neumiller 10, Kelby Houchin 8, Caleb Rogelstad 5, Zach Johnson 2.
Carrington (39): Devin Barton 10, Kaleb Klein 7, Easton Page 6, Erik Collins 6, Chase Monson 4, Jake Nelson 3, Jackson Unruh 3.
New Rockford-Sheyenne 66,
Warwick 54
Often times its the shots made while standing still that can make the biggest difference in the outcome of a basketball game.
New Rockford-Sheyenne, or more accurately, Brett Allmaras, proved that Monday as the senior rained in 10 of 14 foul shots to help the Rockets advance to the championship game with a 66-54 win over Warwick.
Allmaras hit six of eight charity tosses in the final eight minutes as Warwick, which trailed by as many as 15 points late in the third quarter, rallied to make the game interesting down the stretch.
Mitchell Owlboy’s field goal with 1:32 left in the game pulled the Warriors to within 58-52, but that was as close as Warwick would get as NR-S converted five of six foul shots in the final minute to seal the victory.
Warwick 7 16 14 17 – 54
NR-S 15 21 13 17 – 66
Warwick (54): Mitchell Owlboy 14, Kyle Ironhawk 11, Melvin Langstaff 10, Shandy Brown 10, Colton Littleghost 4, Alden Black 3, Brandon Jackson 2.
NR-S (66): Brett Allmaras 30, Stephen Guler 13, Dalton Weber 9, Mathan Messner 8, Shane Stafford 3, Andrew Shaefer 2, Jordan Seiler 1.
