Newport Central Catholic 90 St. Henry 84 (OT)

Final.

Great win by the Breds! The Muliken kid was a beast tonight with 37 points and a ton of rebounds.Freshman Joel Iles had 16 points and Eli Howard finished with 14 I believe. Don’t sleep on this team.

Oh my goodness what a game it was up on the Hill tonight!!!

Newcath jumped out to a quick start, lead by Jr. muscle bound forward Evan Mullikin who immediately established himself as the go-to guy who would be putting on a show for the night...

And a show he put on indeed strongly dominating in the interior, and finishing with 37, but just for good measure tall lanky Fr. Joel Isles was putting on a show himself connecting with numerous beautiful downtown NBN 3's, while St. Henry early on was struggling to find the basket because nothing came easy with NC relentlessly pestering the Cru and denying them many, or any early offensive rebounds.

At the end of one NC was up by 10... 27-17.

While in truth from there on out the game stayed mostly even, but St Henry could never quite cut into the lead, though they never gave up.

It still felt like NC's game to lose, and stayed that way throughout, but when no one was looking St. H's Soph Forward Wyatt Vieth was putting on a show of his own fighting hard, racking up his game high matching 37 points where nary any of his coming the least bit easy.

I believe at one point NC even extended their lead to 14 late in the 3rd quarter, but still St. H would not go away, and as that period ended they had fought hard enough to be down by... a within reach 10.

The question now would be... would we see much of the same in the 4th, or would the Cru once and for all cut into that lead?

Win or lose it was a thing of beauty to see them never say die, and staying diligent and focused they feistily fought back, and sure enough it began to happen for them, and connecting with 13 straight points they finally knotted the game up at 64 and continuing ultimately with a 15-0 run going ahead at 66-64, and ultimately ending regulation all tied up at 76.

With the big momentum swing it felt now that the Cru were in control as they hoped to have this see them surge to victory, and just briefly the Breds did look a little bit defeated, but they weren't gonna hang it up either, and stayed strong to finally get the 'W' in OT.

I realize that the word on the street has been that it was a down year up on the Hill, but I'm here to tell you, don't believe it... they've got the goods, and the goods are only gonna get greater. They'll certainly have a respectable season, and with this young roster of only 2 seniors, by next year watch out!

NC:

Mullikin 37

Isles 16

Howard 14

Glaser 9

St. H:

Veith 37

Westerbeck 15

Bessler 12

Congrats to the Breds, and hats off to Wyatt -- that young man can really play.

Very surprised to see this go into OT. I followed all evening on BGP and it seemed that NCC was up double digits for a good portion of the game. Good for St. Henry on fighting back. Games like this will help NCC as the season wears on. They are earning how to win with a very new group. And, huge kudos to Mullikin and Veith on the monster games!

This was an exciting game. Both teams displayed a lot of heart. Mullikin and Vieth were both very impressive and relentless. No one could handle Vieth in the paint. And Mullikin never stops working and finishes well.

Eli Howard for NCC is an extremely quick guard and creates both for himself and his teammates. I have seen in him AAU multiple times and he is a handful. Ben Glaser had a huge 4th quarter to spark the Breds. Glaser and Howard both had huge FT to seal it - I believe they both went 4 of 4 in 4th Qtr / OT. Both teams are fun to watch.

Wow, sounds like a a great game ...

2 great performances from Veith and Mullikin - congrats to them!

It's unfortunate one of the teams had to lose this one!