Ben Murphy
Sports Scene
The Nouvel Catholic Central basketball teams recently ended their seasons, with the girls’ team falling in the quarterfinals and the boys ending their run in the regional final.
The boys team fell to New Haven 59-57 in two overtimes on March 14 in the Vassar regional championship game.
“It was a very exciting game,” Nouvel head coach Dale Roberts said. “You can’t draw them up any more exciting: regional final, double overtime, it was like a script for a movie. I felt bad for my seniors in the way it turned out. They really worked hard all season.”
Senior Trevor Hohnhoff led the Panthers with 27 points and 18 rebounds in the loss that ended the Panthers season at 16-8.
“Our goal was to repeat what the football team had accomplished in the fall,” Roberts said of the state champs. “The keys to our success over the season was that the players had bought into our tough man-to-man defense. We knew at the start of the season that we would not have our shooting legs for awhile, so we set a goal of keeping teams under 50 points for the game.”
The coach also hopes that by combining the team’s solid finish this year and a influx of talent with next year’s returnees, the 2012-13 season could lead to good things as well.
“We finished the season strong with 10 wins over our last 13 games,” Roberts said. “I don’t like saying goodbye to my seniors, but they will move on to bigger and better things. We will be okay next year with the players we have returning. I had three sophomores up on the varsity that got quality minutes. Also, we have two juniors returning along with a junior varsity team that went 11-8 against the same tough schedule that the varsity had.”
The girls fell to undefeated class C state champion Morley Stanwood 59-44 on March 13 at the Ithaca Quarterfinal, despite a 19 point effort from Taylor Hengesbach.
The Lady Panthers finished the season 18-7, picking up five post-season wins and district and regional championships.