Nocona
The Nocona Indians nearly completed a big second half comeback at Decatur on Wednesday night.
The Eagles barely held on to win 74-72 against a hard charging Indians team.
Nocona was coming off a tough loss against a state-ranked Holliday team last week and Wednesday’s game was not different. Though Decatur is not ranked this season among the top 25 in 4A, it is a program that is used to having a high level of success and being a playoff team.
The Eagles showed that in the first half as Nocona could not stop the bigger Decatur team from scoring.
The Eagles scored 28 points in the first quarter and 23 in the second quarter. While the Indians had some success offensively in the first half as well, it was nowhere near that type of explosion.
Decatur led 51-33 at halftime.
Things changed in the second half. Nocona’s offense, already good while scoring 15 and 17 in the first two quarters, took a bit of a jump to scoring 20 and 19 points in the second half.
More importantly, the Indian defense cooled off the red hot Eagles offense by holding them to 15 points in the third quarter before shutting them down to only eight points in the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, it was one basket too much as Decatur held on to win 74-72.
Javier Gaytan led Nocona with 27 points, with 19 coming in the first half. Oscar Salomon was second with 19 points as he made five 3-pointers.

Bellevue vs Prairie Valley
The Bellevue Eagles won their opening district game on Tuesday night at home against Prairie Valley.
The Eagles won 51-38 against the Bulldogs as both teams featured more freshman than experienced high school players.
Prairie Valley is hoping to overcome the youth of its team to try and get back into the playoffs after back-to-back appearances while Bellevue is trying to break a playoff drought after every playoff team in the district graduated several key pieces.
The Bulldogs led after a tight first quarter 13-11 as they made three 3-pointers. The Eagles took control in a one-sided second quarter as they outscored Prairie Valley 17-2.
That proved to be the catalyst for the rest of the game as second half saw Bellevue only outscore the Bulldogs by two points. The damage was done and the Eagles won comfortably 51-38.
Kason Roper led Bellevue with 19 points while Ryan Jones was second with 15 points as both also made three 3-pointers each.
For Prairie Valley, Tyson Easterling led the team with 27 points while Dale Neugebauer was second with six points.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Longhorns had a tough opening district game on Tuesday at Slidell.
The Greyhounds won 79-34 against a Longhorns team that was hoping to give the defending district champs more of a challenge.
Forestburg comes into district play this year hoping, with last year’s four playoff teams all losing significant contributors, the young core of the Longhorns could take the next step this year to be one of the top teams in the district.
A district title might be out of the question given by how much Slidell won. The Greyhounds scored 19 or more points three of the four quarters while Forestburg scored in double-digits in just one quarter.
Jesus Sanchez led the Longhorns with 16 points while Kyler Willett scored 10 points.

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