By By Matthew Nascone
The Northview Chiefs fought an uphill battle after a solid first quarter of play at home against the Catholic High School Crusaders. The Crusaders came away with a 70-57 victory Jan. 12 in Bratt.
The Chiefs (8-8, 2-2 in Florida High School Athletic Association Class 2B District 1 play) came out defending well and shooting the ball with precision only to see their 16-8 first quarter lead dwindle to a tie game at halftime.
Then the game went slowly downhill for the Chiefs with small spurts of life showing through every once and a while.
However, every time the Chiefs would claw back into the game the Crusaders would make sure to keep the game going in their favor.
The Crusader lead moved past 20 points a couple times in the game, but the Chiefs would show a sense of urgency every time and cut into the lead. The fourth quarter opened with a small NHS run of points. Nakita Myles hit a three and Ahmadh Simpson followed with a steal and a lay-up to cut the CHS lead to 14 points at 54-40.
But following a couple mistakes on defense the Chiefs found themselves trailing 65-43. The Chiefs made a mini run at the lead when Jordan Cook drained a three-pointer and Cedric McKinley and Courtney Whatley got in on the scoring as NHS cut the lead again, this time to 68-55.
But this was the closest the Chiefs got the rest of the game as the final was 70-57 in favor of CHS.
Myles led all NHS players with 19 points. Whatley poured in 17 points, McKinley added 14 points, Cook had three points and Simpson and John Yuhasz added two points each. The JV boy's team and ninth grade teams also played and the results of those game will be in Wednesday's edition of the Advance.
The NHS girl's basketball team played Catholic on Friday and those results will also be in Wednesday's edition of the Advance.