Harvest Christian drops regional semifinal
North Shore Country Day School dominated on both the offensive and defensive ends in defeating Harvest Christian Academy 59-45 in the second semifinal game at the Class 1A Westminster Christian regional Wednesday night.
North Shore's taut defense made it difficult for the Lions to work the ball inside and grab offensive rebounds. Harvest Academy trailed 19-14 after the first quarter.
On offense, the Raiders were able to work the ball inside. Junior Alex Freiberger, a 6-foot-7 junior, scored eight of his team-high 12 points in the paint. North Shore led 32-24 at halftime.
"It was their strength, they were stronger than us and that helped their position on the drives," Harvest Christian coach Bryan Bradshaw. "We didn't handle the contact real well. It just bothered us. It made it difficult for us to get into our stuff on offense."
His team ended the season with an 18-13 record.
"Our defense led to our offense," said North Shore coach Rashid Smith. "We probably got 16 fastbreak points."
The two teams kept pace, with North Shore (14-12) leading by 12 at the end of the third quarter, 44-34.
Harvest Christian's Benjamin Lothery, a freshman, led all scorers with 16 points. Lions senior Nate Buldog closed out his high school career with nine points, all on 3-pointers.
"(Lothery) had a pretty good game, but I still thought we made him work for everything he got," Smith said.
Both Patrick Fitzgerald and Sam Roszak notched 11 points for the Raiders.