With both of Nocona’s basketball teams playing district basketball, the Indians and Lady Indians hosted Holliday on Friday.
While the Lady Indians were able to stay undefeated in district with an easy 61-35 win, the Indians started off district 0-1 after losing to the Eagles 47-26.
The Nocona girls were able to weather a close start to quarter one by ending the quarter on a 15-1 run as the Lady Indians led 24-9 heading into the second quarter. The Lady Eagles could not recover as Nocona led 54-33 heading into the fourth quarter.
With the game in hand, Coach Kyle Spitzer felt he needed to challenge his team in the fourth quarter.
“I said they have averaged 11 points a quarter,” Spitzer said. “Let’s see if we can hold them under that and we held them to two points.”
Other than his defense stepping up when challenged, Spitzer also tried to challenge his team to rebound, as it has been an issue all season against certain teams.
“I would say it was probably in the top three performances this season we had rebounding,” Spitzer said.
The Lady Indians ended up winning 61-35.
Averee Kleinhans bounced back from a rough game for her at Henrietta by scoring 39 points. Trystin Fenoglio was second with nine points.
The Nocona boys were not so lucky. After getting down 21-8 in the first quarter, the Indians offense never picked up. Despite getting the looks they wanted, shots were not falling for anyone on Nocona’s side while Holliday was able to coast their way home as they won 47-26. Joan Gomez led the team with six points while Lyndon Fenoglio scored five.
Coach Colby Schniederjan knows his team will have to play better if they want to compete in district play, but also knows not to overreact to one game.
“We have to play our best game every night to compete,” Schniederjan said. “No one won a district championship on Friday and no one was eliminated from the playoffs. We have nine games left and plenty of opportunity to win games and set ourselves up for postseason play, but we must realize that everyone is also chasing the same goal.”

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