The Nocona basketball teams hosted and beat Henrietta on Tuesday night in games that were wildly different.
The Lady Indians blew out the Lady Cats 84-23 while the Indians held off a last minute rally from the Bearcats to win 44-37.
The Nocona girls team had little worry heading into the game. The undefeated district run had the Lady Indians sitting in first place while Henrietta was outside of the playoff picture.
Nocona did not let the Lady Cats breathe for the first quarter as the team pressed Henrietta on defense. Not normally a press team, Coach Kyle Spitzer knew he needed to make sure his team came out with good energy since there is no other way to play press defense.
This made the Lady Indians build a 27-6 lead after the first quarter and even as he called off the press it never did get better for Henrietta.
Nocona continued to push the ball up of the court off of defensive stops and the team scored 20 or more points in each of the first three quarters.
Even as key players were subbed out, Spitzer did not want his team to let up, though that inevitably happened in the fourth quarter with the margin stretching to 60 points.
The Lady Indians won 84-23.

The Nocona boy’s game had more at stake. The Indians finished the first round of district play tied with Henrietta as both had a 3-3 record. Unfortunately, the Bearcats 50-46 win against Nocona in the first round put Henrietta in front of the Indians in the standings, which would have them missing the playoffs.
The start of the game saw Nocona get out in front early as post player Sam Davis scored five points around the rim and Brady McCasland scored four points on drives to the basket in his first game back after missing the last two games with an injury.
The Indians played lights out man-to-man defense against the Bearcats and led 11-4 after the first quarter.
Nocona got dealt a blow in the opening minute of the second quarter when Davis picked up his second foul and had to sit the rest of the half. His size on defense had been more valuable than his offense had been in the first quarter since Henrietta was looking to score around the basket.
The Bearcats had switched their defense from man to zone and Nocona started settling for more perimeter shots and were able to make two 3-pointers in the quarter. This kept them ahead Henrietta still had trouble scoring.
The Indians led 19-13 at halftime.
Davis got hit for a third foul two minutes into the third quarter and was forced to sit. His replacement Ryder Oswald, who had missed a lot of games earlier in the season to injury, had done well enough in the first half on defense while scoring four points.
In the third quarter he six of his team’s 10 points that forced Henrietta to switch back to a zone. At one point Nocona led 25-13 midway through the quarter and looked fully in control.
The Bearcats rallied a bit before the quarter, but the Indians still held a double-digit lead 29-19 heading into the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter saw Henrietta switch to 3-2 zone that started to aggressively trap on the perimeter and up to mid court. This would prevent Nocona from stalling in an already slow paced game.
The Indians did a good job of handling that and keeping their lead at 10 points for most of the quarter. As the time started to wind down Henrietta was forced to foul and send Nocona to the free throw line.
Lyndon Fenoglio made both of his to put the Indians up 37-25 with 1:02 left to play.
The final minute would prove to be wild.
The Bearcats had made one 3-pointer in the first three quarters, but in the final minute the team made four. Three of them came from Fisher Pullen and the looks were nothing more than desperation pull ups that were contested well.
The other once came off a stolen inbounds play right after a made 3-pointer and was made by Baron Brown.
The only thing that kept this 3-point barrage from turning into a dramatic comeback was Nocona’s free throw shooting. Starting with Fenoglio’s makes before the 3-pointers, the Indians went 9-10 to keep their lead at multiple possessions even as the absurdity kept mounting.
The Indians held on to win 44-37 as Henrietta ran out of time.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.