ABOVE: North Union guard Greyson Colegrove (10) drives to the basket while guarded by Estherville Lincoln Central’s Noah Danner (21) in a boys basketball game at North Union High School Monday night.

ARMSTRONG, Iowa – The North Union Warriors rallied late in the fourth in an attempted comeback against Estherville Lincoln Central on Monday night but fell just short, 49-46, in a nonconference boys basketball game.

A slow second quarter proved to be the issue for the Warriors, who despite having a 12-7 lead after the first were only able to put up 6 points to ELC’s 21 in the second quarter.

“We’re a little inexperienced yet,” said North Union boys basketball head coach Alex Fisher. “That’s what we’re learning, that we can’t go in long segments of time of lackluster defense and very stagnant offense or we dig ourselves in too big of a hole and that happened to us tonight, second quarter. I thought we got real weak on defense and gave up a lot of paint touches, let them get going in the paint.”

The game came down to the final six seconds when ELC flung the ball into the rafters, hitting a truss and causing a turnover. With the ball in their possession, the Warriors took one final shot from beyond the arc but were unable to convert, bringing the night to a close.

Leading the Warriors was Khael Jones with 16 points and six rebounds and Greyson Colegrove with 11 points and five rebounds. Cole Nicoson added 8 points and nine rebounds, while Caden Walders put 5 points and 11 rebounds.

Despite a tough end to the first half where the Warriors found themselves down 28-18, they had no intentions of giving up and made necessary adjustments to get back in contention. Mitigating the lack of depth on their roster with ball control and solid defense, the Warriors outscored their opponent in the final two quarters by 7 points.

“With only playing six guys in rotation, it’s that toughness aspect,” said Fisher. “It felt like two different teams out there tonight. You know, at times we looked very weak mentally and physically and then at the end there, we found it down deep somewhere to kind of keep fighting and battle our way back at some timely stops and hit some shots and battle back. So we’re still trying to find our identity of what kind of team we want to be on the offensive end. But as far as the grit and the toughness we want to have all around, I think maybe we found a little piece of that tonight.”

ELC opened the scoring in the first, but the Warriors responded quickly courtesy of a Nicoson shot. ELC then went on a 5-0 run before Jones drained a long 3, putting the Warriors within 2 points. Nicoson drove hard to the basket to tie things up at 7-7, kicking off a Warriors 5-0 run. ELC rallied, putting up 5 uninterrupted points before Bruhn was able to respond for the Warriors and keep ELC from extending the lead further than 3 points. With 4:30 left in the half, Jones fired a pass over his shoulder to a driving Nelsen, who floated the ball over an ELC defender for the bucket to bring the Warriors within a point 19-18. ELC took control after that, going on a 10-0 run to close the half with a score of 28-18.

The second half felt like a different team took the court for North Union, which began to slowly chip away at the ELC lead courtesy of the shooting hand of Nicoson and the defense stalling the ELC attack. The Warriors ended the third down 36-27.

The Warriors gave up 4 points in the first minute of the fourth, but a Jones 3 fired up the Warriors’ offense, who with just over four minutes left on the clock sparked a late rally that consisted of four more shots from behind the arc. Colegrove hit three of those 3-pointers, while Walders found the mark on the other to bring North Union within a point down 47-46. ELC managed to hit two free throws, extending its lead to 3, which set up the final moments of the game.

North Union takes on Forest City at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday at home.