Devil boys nearly knock off Plains

The longer the season gets, the better the Noxon Red Devil boys seem to play.

Continuing a season of improving basketball returns, coach Ryan Weltz’s Red Devils completed regular season play last week, dropping a dramatic 50-48 decision to District 14C regular season champion Plains in Plains Friday and then falling 51-42 to visiting Lincoln in a non-conference game in the West End Saturday.

The tight game with Plains, which Noxon had their chances to win, stands in stark contrast to the game these two teams played earlier this season in Noxon, when the Horsemen walloped the Devils 59-18 on their home court.

The Devils finish regular season play with a 5-5 record in 14C play and the No. 3 seed into this week’s conference tournament in Ronan. Now 10-8 overall, the Devils will face No. 6 Two Eagle River in the first round of the 14C tourney at 1 p.m. Thursday.

“I am pretty proud of the way we finished the regular season,” Weltz said. “It has been a learning process the whole way but we showed we can play with the better teams in our district in Plains, and hope to build on that heading into the tournament.”

Popping in 3-pointers from the outside and posting up effectively at other times in Plains, Wetlz’s son Rylan Weltz was the best player on the floor Friday, scoring a game-high 30 points to pace Noxon.

Coming up with big plays of their own down the stretch of the game, Michael Antonich and Aiden Galloway added eight and five points each, respectively, Nate Cano scored three and Brody Hill two.

Please see other story for Plains scoring.

Against Lincoln, Weltz again led Noxon scoring with 19 points, Antonich added 13, Cano nine and Galloway one.

Only three Lynx players scored but all three scored well as Brodi Henderson bucketed 27, Ryan Greenwood 13 and Nathan Brown 11.