LINDEN — North Montgomery’s regular season ended on a sour note with a 52-32 setback at home against Greencastle on Friday night.
The future Monon Athletic Conference opponent of the Chargers shot 21-of-34 from the field and got a 25-point effort from sophomore and leading scorer Sam Gooch in the win.
“They’re a quick team, and they’re good,” North Montgomery coach Chad Arnold said. “I don’t think we’ve faced that type of speed all year long. They’re long as well. You add that and then get a bunch of guys that can shoot, it’s hard.”
Greencastle jumped to a 10-3 lead, before North Montgomery countered with a 5-2 spurt to close the first quarter.
Jarrod Kirsch it a 3-pointer with 4:57 left in the first half to make it 15-14 Greencastle, but a 13-0 Tiger Cub run to close the half busted the game open.
Collectively, the Chargers went seven minutes without scoring a point to close the second quarter and open the second half.
“They do a good job,” Arnold said. “They zoned us and spaced it out and made us throw it inside. They stopped us from getting into the paint, and we were kind of out of it tonight.”
The Chargers were 4-of-18 in the first half, and until Kelby Harwood made a lay-up at the 5:57 in the third quarter, North Montgomery had not made a two-point field goal.
After an eight-point effort in the first half, Gooch wnet 6-of-8 from the field over the final 16 minutes, and scored 17 points. Cody Evans added 14 for the Tiger Cubs.
North Montgomery connected on just 11-of-34 shots for the game, including 6-of-19 on 3-pointers. Jarrod Kirsch led the Chargers with 11, while Harwood added seven.
Greencastle out-rebounded North Montgomery 25-17.
The loss to close the regular season comes after the Chargers had won three of four. North Montgomery enters sectional play at 10-13.
“We’ve just got to chop it up and move on,” Arnold said. “We’ve played well, it’s just tonight we looked like we were playing in quicksand on defense and offensively, we just didn’t have ball reversal or movement and could not get it in the paint.”
North Montgomery plays the winner of Western and Twin Lakes on Friday at the Frankfort sectional. Greencastle plays South Putnam at Greencastle to open up sectional play on Wednesday. The Tiger Cubs enter tournament play at 14-9.
