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Indians get early wake-up call in district play

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North Side’s boys’ basketball team had the first of 10 District 12-AAA last Thursday night before the weekend snow storm moved in.

It came two days after the Indians went to Trenton and had to fight for 32 minutes to get a win at Peabody High School.

Head coach Aaron Woods wouldn’t let that be an excuse for the frustrating manner in which his team played in the first half.

“It could be that because sometimes that can have a bigger effect than you expect,” Woods said. “Especially when it has been a week or so since we’d played before that game.

“But I don’t know if maybe we have to fight the urge to play to the perceived level of our competition.”

Chester County came into Thursday’s game with fewer wins and more losses than Peabody had two nights before, but Woods said that had no reflection on the way they played on Thursday.

“They were outhustling us on both ends of the court and getting loose balls we should’ve been getting,” Woods said. “So we had to have a discussion in the lockerroom.”

When the second quarter ended, Chester County led 32-23 as North Side had gone through the motions of basketball for the first 16 minutes.

Woods said he and his assistant coach, Drew Woods, had a discussion with the players about not changing anything strategy-wise in the second half. But some major changes had to happen effort-wise.

Whatever was said apparently worked because the Indians outscored the Eagles in the second half, 39-16 for a 62-48 victory.

“We just had to do better what we do,” Woods said. “We had to pick up the pace, we had to go after those loose balls and we had to play our brand of basketball and not theirs.

“When we got into that flow, it worked for us.”

Woods said he’s glad for a couple of things. He’s glad the game went the way it did, so hopefully his players learned a valuable lesson from it. But he also is glad that lesson came in the first of 10 District 12-AAA games instead of later in the district schedule.

“These games are so important because they can have a big effect on how our postseason goes,” Woods said. “We want the best seed we can get for the district tournament to make that as easy on us as possible.

“Because how things go in the district tournament can affect how things go in the region tournament too, which we want the best seed we can have for that as well.”

Woods said his older players can look back at the last three years of postseason to learn that lesson.

In 2022, the Indians advanced to the state tournament in Murfreesboro. In 2023, they were eliminated in the region quarterfinals, the first game after the district tournament. Last year’s team made it to the Region 6-AAA semifinals.

“Seeding and everything is so important, and one thing I think our guys don’t realize is that seeding process started tonight,” Woods said. “And most of our games from here on out are part of that process.”

The Indians are getting consistent production on the scoreboard from Lincoln Woods and Javonte Smith. A.J. Currie and Markaylun Kelly also provide quality points on a regular basis too.

Tuesday night saw Round 2 of district play for the Indians when they hosted Lexington. Their early scoring was better in this game, and they routed the Tigers for their second district win.

This weekend is tougher as their rival South Side Hawks come to town.

“This is the type of matchup we tried to prepare for when we tried to put tough games on the schedule early on,” Woods said. “We’re looking forward to it because they’re playing well, and hopefully we will too.”

Girls tip off at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news