Bison squads draw rematches with NP in league tourney

McCook senior Dustin Parde battles with Robby Allmond (20) of Holdrege for a rebound in the Bison boys' 44-35 win Dec. 19 at the McCook Senior High gym.

It won't take long for the McCook High School basketball teams to try and avenge Friday, Dec. 18 losses to North Platte.

The Bison boys and girls have drawn rematches with North Platte in the first round of next week's Greater Nebraska Athletic Conference Tournament.

The conference tournament will be played over the holiday break, Jan. 29-31, at North Platte.

McCook sophomore Emilyne Nichols (42) drives around an unidentified Holdrege player in girls' basketball action at the Senior High gym Dec. 19.

First-round pairings for the league tourney were announced Monday. McCook, 4-2, drew the fifth seed in the eight-team boys conference tourney field, while the 0-8 Bison are the eighth seed in the girls bracket.

Next Tuesday, the McCook teams will return to the scene of the crime, the North Platte High School gym, for the first round of the GNAC tournament. The Bison squads lost to North Platte in the same gym last Friday. The Bison girls lost to the Bulldogs 72-27, and the McCook boys battled with the Bulldogs but came up short in a 44-36 loss.

The McCook girls will face top seed North Platte, 5-1, Tuesday, Dec. 29, at 2 p.m. at the North Platte High School main gym. The Bison boys follow at the same location with their rematch with the 2-4 Bulldogs starting at 3:45 p.m.

Win or lose Tuesday, the McCook girls will play again Wednesday, Jan. 30, at 11 a.m. The Bison boys will also play again Jan. 30 at 12:45 p.m. in either the GNAC championship semifinals or consolation semifinals.

The GNAC Tournament finals, seventh place to championship games, are set for Thursday, Jan. 31.

The conference tournament features four Class A squads in Columbus, Kearney, Norfolk and North Platte, and four Class B schools in Hastings, Lexington, Scottsbluff and the Bison. McCook has the smallest enrollment of the eight schools in the league.

McCook junior guard Connor Larson was asked last Saturday night after the Bison beat Holdrege if McCook would covet a rematch with North Platte.

"Our team would love to do that," Larson said. "We are so ready for a rematch because we know we should have beat them (Friday) and we could have beat them. So we would love to play them at GNAC again, because I guess we're kind of like arch-rivals, you could say. It seems like they don't have too much respect for us. They're got some good players on their team, and it would be great if we could beat them in GNAC if we run into them again.

"We're not going to worry about our seed, just hopefully go in there and take care of business."