Nocona
The Nocona Indians had a tough road game on Friday playing at former district opponent Holliday.
The Eagles won 55-40 against the Indians, although the game was closer throughout than the final score.
Nocona knew it would be tough playing state-ranked Holliday with a missing starter, but also knew it had a big challenge trying to stop a bigtime player.
Keitenn Bristow is six to seven inches taller than the Indians tallest player and while Nocona would usually try to attack his skinny frame in the post, he usually plays out on the perimeter like a guard and is a Division I recruit.
The Indians usually just tried to stay in front of him and do their best to contest the tough shots he took, despite their hands not reaching his face on some attempts.
Nocona early on attacked Holliday’s zone defense by shooting over the top. The Indians made four 3-pointers, with three coming from Brady McCasland as it trailed the Eagles 17-14.
Holliday switched its defense from zone to man-to-man, which cooled Nocona a little bit with less open 3-pointers. However, the Indians did find room to attack the paint on drives.
Nocona’s defense had trouble slowing down the Eagles as they went into halftime down 33-24.
The Indians defense locked in during the third quarter, allowing only eight points with some coming off of turnovers in transition instead of Nocona’s set defense.
This allowed the Indians to cut into their deficit a bit as Javier Gaytan scored seven of his team’s 12 points.
Hot scorer McCasland had to deal with Bristow matching up with him on defense after he scored 15 points in the first half.
Nocona was hanging around and was within range heading into the fourth quarter down 41-36 if it could have another successful defensive quarter.
Instead, the Indians had trouble scoring in the final period as turnovers and the physical play seemed to wear them down.
Nocona was held to only four points and Holliday ran away with the win 55-40.
McCasland led the Indians with 18 points while Gaytan was second with 14 points.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Longhorns won another close game with a win against Burkburnett’s JV at home on Friday night.
The Longhorns won 58-57 against the Bulldogs in a game that had big back-and-forth swings in the middle of the game.
Forestburg was coming off an overtime win against Bryson earlier in the week and the Longhorns got another close type of game that tested them.
Forestburg led 13-11 after the first quarter, but then had a huge second quarter, outscoring Burkburnett 20-10 to take a double-digit lead 33-21 into halftime.
The Bulldogs turned things around in the third quarter and ended up outscoring the Longhorns by nearly the same margin 21-10 to get back into the game and cut their lead to one point 43-42 heading into the final period.
Burkburnett could only score from 3-point range in the fourth quarter, but made five for 15 points. Despite that, Forestburg was scoring just as well while earning a lot of free throw trips.
The game would not have come down to the wire if the Longhorns shot better from the charity stripe as they went 1-8 from the free throw line the fourth quarter.
Still, Forestburg scored 15 points as well which was enough for the Longhorns to hold on and win 58-57.
Jesus Sanchez led the team with 20 points while Kyler Willett was second with 18 points and Jesse Wadsworth added 12 points.

Gold-Burg
The Gold-Burg Bears picked up a fun win at home on Friday night against Garner.
The Bears won 67-48 against the Longhorns as the team tries to clean up some of their early season struggles.
Gold-Burg came out on fire as its press sped up the game into the fast pace it wanted. The Bears dominated, extending their lead out to 22-6 at the end of the first quarter.
The next three quarters were not as one-sided. Garner offensively started to settle down and hit some shots. Fortunately, Gold-Burg still outscored the Longhorns in two of the three final quarters and never scored less than 14 points in every period as its offense never lulled.
The Bears won 67-48 thanks in large part to that dominant start.
Jayon Grace led the team with 23 points while Isaac Renteria was second with 17 points.

Missing scores
The coach from Saint Jo did not send in scores from Friday’s game. Prairie Valley had a bye-game late last week.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.