Blue Valley North boys basketball beats Blue Valley Northwest for first time since 2015

Luke Adams waited four years for a chance to beat Blue Valley Northwest. Standing at the free-throw line in overtime on Friday night, he finally got that chance.

But it wasn’t just one free throw he had to hit. Not two either. It took four made free throws from Adams down the stretch to give Blue Valley North its first win over the Huskies since 2015, 63-62.

“I’m thinking I have to hit them,” Adams said. “They’ve got two amazing players and if they get a chance it could be bad, so I knew I had to hit them.”

Avenging a home loss at the hands of BV Northwest (10-1) earlier this season, BV North (12-1) returned the favor on the Huskies’ home court, leading the game almost from wire to wire during regulation.

Taking the first lead of the game, the Mustangs didn’t relinquish its lead until BV Northwest tied the game at 50-50 with 53 seconds left. The Huskies then went and took their first and only lead of the game a little over a minute into overtime before BV North came back and took control of the game.

The defeat for BV Northwest also signaled the end of a 31-game winning streak.

“We showed the guys a lot of stuff that we did wrong the first time and what we did wrong on Tuesday and the guys really locked in on their rebounding,” BV North head coach Ryan Phifer said. “I’m just really proud of just how they stuck to the game plan, and they stayed positive when things weren’t quite going our way for a while in the fourth quarter.”

Although the Mustangs’ home loss to BV Northwest earlier in the season didn’t count toward their record, BV North did lose its first league game of the season earlier this week to Blue Valley West.

The loss prompted Phifer to show up to practice the following day wearing a Lamar Jackson shirt that read ‘Nobody cares, work harder.’

“That’s still going to be our motto,” Phifer said. “It’s great to win this game, but we’re still pushing toward March and hopefully making a run.”

And the Mustangs’ starters certainly did work hard. Despite scoring 63 points, not a single bench player managed to score a point. The only Mustang bench player to make a contribution to the stat line was junior guard JD Roane, who picked up an assist.

The same could be said for BV Northwest, who only had one bench point, which came on a free throw from junior Mikey Pauley.

And out of those starters for Blue Valley North, none made more of an impact throughout the game than senior forward Andrew Orr.

Orr scored 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting and had five assists and five rebounds.

One of the major battles of the game pitted Orr against BV Northwest senior Ben Fritz. Standing an inch taller than Fritz at 6 feet, 8 inches Orr dominated inside, an area that Fritz is typically accustomed to controlling.

“I’ve been playing against him for a while now, we’ve known each other so we’re good friends, and we do battle every time we play each other,” Orr said. “One of my biggest things tonight was coming in and boxing him out. He is their best rebounder by far, and so my job was to come in and box them out and make sure he had no offensive rebounds.”

With little room to maneuver inside the paint, the Huskies instead turned toward guard Alston Mason. The senior had a game-high 30 points, shooting 10 of 23 from the field, including a three-pointer at the end of overtime that brought the score to within one point.

“The defense on Alston — Alston and (Jack) Chapman area a great one-two punch — but we really wanted to key on them and make sure the other guys didn’t get theirs off rebounds and everything else,” Phifer said.

But ultimately, it was Adams’ free throws in the final minute of overtime that gave the Mustangs the room to allow Mason to take the open three to close out the game. The Mustangs couldn’t have had a better player head to the line, with Adams being the team’s leading free-throw shooter during his time at BV North.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Adams said. “I’ve been playing since my freshman year, I’ve played them eight times and this is my first win, so it feels great.”