GT holds off Nicolet to stay in NSC race
Warhawks squeak out, 61-59, victory
Nicolet — Like he has said earlier, boys basketball coach Steve Showalter doesn't know when his sophomore-dominated team is going to play like men or boys.
But in a do-or-die situation Tuesday night, the Hawks were decidedly the former, as they played stout defense and hit enough free throws to hold off senior-dominated Nicolet, 61-59.
"We're still standing," said Showalter, as his team improved to 8-4 in the North Shore and 14-6 overall while Nicolet fell to 7-5 and 14-6. "I watched Nicolet warm up and I knew that they would come out with the eye of the tiger. It was just whether we could match their intensity and we did it just long enough."
Germantown remains one game behind Port Washington (9-3, 16-3) in the North Shore race. The Warhawks will travel to winless Grafton on Friday, while Port will visit a testy Homestead (6-6, 10-9) squad the same night. Germantown needs to win its remaining two league games and have Port stumble in order to pull into a tie. The Pirates survived a 56-49 decision over Cedarburg on Tuesday.
"We've come this far, there's no way we're going to stop now," said sophomore point guard Josh Mongan, who had 11 points.
Germantown trailed 25-24 at the break but used fierce man-to-man defense to force eight third quarter turnovers out of the Knights. Back-to-back hoops from Joe Medley (nine points) and fast-rising senior post Jake Keefe (13) early in the period put the Warhawks ahead for good.
"I just kept working hard in practice so I could earn my spot," said Keefe.
The lead went to 10 late in the third quarter, but in a frantic fourth period, the Knights used pressure defense and tied the score at 52 on a short jumper by Myles Henry (17 points) with 2:20 left.
But Medley fashioned a three-point play just seconds later, and Germantown never trailed again. Nicolet missed one good chance to tie with just under a minute to go, and Mongan hit four free throws in the final 21 seconds to clinch the game.
Zak Showalter led Germantown with 16.
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