The popular movie tag asks, ‘Who you gonna call . . . ? Ghostbusters!’
Friday night in the Northside gym, the Vikings didn’t need The Ghostbusters.
They dialed up Kendrick Tucker.
Riding a career-high 34 points from the sharpshooting senior, Northside pulled out the 74-68 overtime thriller over visiting Cave Spring.
“Coach told us this week, if the shot’s there, shoot it,” Tucker said with a huge smile afterward. “I felt real good tonight, there was an adrenaline rush for sure. Cave Spring is a good team and this was a good test for us. We had to fight to the end.”
The adrenaline rush for Tucker was no stronger than in the 4-minute overtime period where he poured in 10 of Northside’s 13 points, including the opening score of the extra period, followed by the backbreaker for Cave Spring with 1:10 left.
Cave Spring had countered Tucker’s first score in OT with a basket inside by junior Baker Haviland. After Viking big man Carlos Basham hit one-of-two free throws to put Northside up 64-63. Cave Spring missed at the other end before Viking sophomore guard Nick Price went to the line with with 1:14 left, shooting a one-and-one.
Price missed the front end, but Tucker managed to gain position for the rebound, going back up for an acrobatic carom off the glass and drawing a foul in the process. Tucker sank the free throw to give Northside the 67-63 lead, giving the Vikings the control they needed.
Tucker scored on the next Northside possession to make it 69-63 and Haviland sank two free throws for the Knights with 30.2 seconds left to close the Cave Spring deficit to 69-65. But, Tucker scored on a drive and foul six seconds later that answered any question of a Cave Spring rally.
The game went back and forth during regulation.
Cave Spring led 14-13 after one quarter and went up by six, 22-16, early in the second quarter before Northside rallied to take a 33-31 lead to the halftime break.
Northside led by as many as four in the third quarter before the Knights closed strong to take a 51-50 advantage into the final frame.
Cave Spring led most of the fourth quarter, and was up 61-59 in the final 30 seconds before Viking Shey Webb knotted the game on a rolling tip-in.
“It was a well-played game by both teams,” Northside head coach Billy Pope said outside the Viking locker room. “We’ve been working on our defense and our running game, and things worked out for us tonight. The last four games between these two teams have all been close, with two of them going overtime.”
“We played extremely hard and we had opportunities to win,” Cave Spring head coach Jacob Gruse noted. “I’m excited with my team. This game will help us and we’ll look back at it at the end of the season as a positive.”
In addition to Tucker, Basham led Northside with 12 points, while George Bright added 11 and Price 10.
Mason Reyer had a team-high 21 points for Cave Spring, with Brody Hicks adding 20 and Haviland knocking down 11.
The two teams tangle again next Friday night in a rematch in the Cave Spring gym.
Bill Turner