Click the thumbnails to see photos and video highligjhts from the game. Click the AUDIO button to hear Kyle Hustrulid's player spotlight interview (with help from Trevor Nolan). Also click the AUDIO button to hear post game comments from Taveon Vann, Emerson Droubie, and Coach Matt Johnson.
INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, Minn.---Basketball is a game of runs. That is a coach's cliché, but sometimes, it's true. And on Saturday in Minnesota, the Bay College Norse and Dakota County Technical College Blue Knights proved that in a wild back-and-forth game.
The old Region XIII rivals exchanged punch after punch before the game was decided in the final seconds, with the Norse leaving Minnesota with a 70-69 victory.
Taveon Vann scored the go-ahead basket with 3.3 seconds to play after two missed free throws, and then held on as DCTC got one final look at the buzzer.
“My teammates, Adam (Page), Trevor (Nolan), were supporting me through all the bad times I was having in the first half,” Vann said. “They just kept getting in my head, telling me like 'no one can guard you down there and just go finish'. Then every time I had the ball in my hands, all I thought about was finishing.”
Ziad Abouali missed both free throws with nine seconds left, but battled to get the rebound along the baseline. One pass later, Abouali bounced it to Vann next to the basket, and he finished.
scored
“Without that rebound, we don't win this game,” said Vann, who scored all 16 of his points in the second half. “Z got a great rebound, and he saw me. We do that every time in practice. Every time in practice we play a little game like that, he draws all the attention, passes it to me, and I get the bucket.”
“He (Vann) didn't play particularly well, especially offensively, in the first half,” Norse Coach Matt Johnson said. “He didn't give up. He kept fighting. We stuck with him, and we gave him the ball a lot late, and he made plays. He won us a game. That's huge.”
Bay jumped to a 27-14 lead in the first eight minutes of the game as Trevor Nolan made two very long triples, Emerson Droubie knocked down a pair of threes, and William Kelley also drained a pair of triples. But the Norse went cold from there.
Former Norse player Parker Fahning scored in the paint to give DCTC a 32-31 lead, completing a 17-4 Blue Knights run. It was 34-34 at halftime.
DCTC (6-6 overall) scored the first ten points of the second half to take a 44-34 lead, but the Norse came right back with a 12-0 run. Kelley had an “and-one” basket during that run, and Kyler Sager came off the bench to hit a shot, putting Bay up, 46-44.
DCTC wasn't done yet. Randy McClendon, Jr., made back-to-back triples to give the Blue Knights a 59-53 lead with 5:58 left. And former Norse player D'Marco Chelley scored an “and-one” basket with 3:15 left to give DCTC a 64-59 lead.
With the score 67-61, Droubie hit a clutch triple to bring Bay to within three, and then Abouali scored with an up-and-under move to make it 67-66. Vann scored with 1:07 left to put Bay in front, 68-67. but the Blue Knights regained the lead heading into the final seconds. That set up the fantastic finish for Vann, and the Norse had to hold its collective breath as DCTC got off a decent shot at the buzzer after a long home run pass.
“I think we did a lot of really, really good stuff.” Johnson said. “Probably not as much or as clean as we would like it to be, but we're going into Christmas Break 9-2. With two games that if we had a chance to play again (Oakland and MATC), we would probably be able to win. I think, all in all, we should feel pretty good about where we're at.”
With the win, the Norse improved to 5-0 away from the Bay College Gym. Vann led the Norse with 16 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double. Trey Frye III added 14 points, five rebounds and four assists. Droubie had 13 points and pulled down six rebounds. He drained three triples, playing less than an hour from his hometown.
“Man, it feels good going into the break and getting this dub,” Droubie said. “Coach always says that they're going to go on their runs, and then we are going to go on ours. We've just got to limit their runs, and just really lock in when things go wrong. We obviously bounced back and made some clutch shots.”
Kelley chipped in eleven points and four assists, becoming the fourth Norse player to score in double figures.
DCTC also had four players score in double figures. McClendon and Yarin Alexander both scored 13 points, Chelley scored 12 points and grabbed six assists against his former team, and Lorenzo Levy added ten points. Fahning scored nine points.
Bay College will be back in action on January 2nd and 3rd when the Norse take part in the St. Clair County Community College New Year's tournament in Port Huron.
