OGALLALA – The Cozad boys basketball team survived in an overtime thriller on Tuesday night, defeating Dawson County rival Gothenburg 57-55 to advance to the C1-11 Subdistrict Final.
The first quarter was back and forth, ending in a 12-12 tie. Trey Stevens for Gothenburg and Kellen Shoemaker for Cozad both scored six first quarter points. Gothenburg pulled away a bit in the second quarter, thanks to seven second quarter points from Tucker Keith, and held a 26-21 halftime lead.
Gothenburg started to go on some runs in the third quarter, extending their lead to eight at one point, but Cozad kept the game at arms length, at one point cutting the game to three in the third, and trailed by six heading into the fourth quarter. The Haymakers would then use a huge fourth quarter, outscoring Gothenburg 14-8 in the period to send the game to overtime tied at 47. Noah Shoemaker had nine fourth quarter points, and hit the game tying three.
Noah Shoemaker got things going early in overtime, helping Cozad jump out to a narrow lead in overtime. From there, Cozad limited possessions in the extra period, and got enough defensive stops to hold on for the 57-55 victory.
Gothenburg was led in scoring by Kooper Koehn who finished with 17 points. Gothenburg was 15-15 from the free throw line and committed 11 turnovers. Noah Shoemaker led the way for the Haymakers, scoring 21 points, all of which came in the second half. Cozad was 9-17 from the free throw line and committed 10 turnovers.
Gothenburg finishes their season at 16-7. Cozad improves to 21-4, and will take on one seeded Ogallala on Thursday for the C1-11 subdistrict title. Ogallala won both regular season matchups between the two. The game starts at 7 PM CST, and we’ll bring it to you on KAMI country or krvn.com.
KRVN’s Jon Willis spoke postgame with Cozad head coach Nick Broz.
Listen to the game here.
