By MATT PIKE
It might not have been the result the North Platte Panthers had hoped for in taking the boy's basketball team to MSHSAA state basketball tournament for the first time ever in the program's history, but in the end the team still came home as one of only two winners in the state of Missouri in Class 3.
One day after falling to Miller Career Academy and being knocked to the third place game, the Panthers defeated Liberty Mountain View 61-57, rallying from being down 14 points at one point in the third quarter, outscoring the Eagles 35-28 in the second half of the game for the four point win.
"One of the things we got down here when we realized when we were coming here was our goal was to win one," Head Coach Bradyn Kemper tells reporters after the game. "We knew winning two was probably impossible, so we said let's go win one, whether that was Miller or Liberty Mountain View and we got one, one of the two teams in Class 3 that can say they ended their season on a win."
North Platte fought back and forth with Liberty Mountain View all through the first half, the lead changing hands just twice, but the Panthers lead only getting as large as five points while the Eagles could only pull ahead by four points at the largest, Liberty Mountain View holding a 15-13 lead at the end of the quarter. Things continued to go back and forth through the second quarter, again the Panthers never letting the Eagles build a lead larger than four points and the teams tying just once, leaving North Platte trailing by three points at the halftime break 26-23.
As the second half began, the Eagles pulled away even more, with 4:05 remaining in the third quarter holding a 14 point lead, with four straight unanswered buckets and two free throws, before a three pointer by Jase Smith cut the Liberty Mountain View back to 11 points. Senior Dylan Armstrong says every day during practices, coach Kemper talked about this team doing what they can to win games.
"District championship game we were down by 19, and coming back from that game it really showed us that we have a lot of potential on this team and we just go out there and try to play our hearts out every game," Armstrong says.
After the three from Smith, the Panthers continued to chip away at the Eagles lead. A layup by Isaac Wright cut the lead to nine, and even after a three point shot extended the lead back to 12, senior Brenden Matt hit a three to cut it back to nine points. Another three from Armstrong cut the lead to six, before Wright hit another layup to put North Platte down by four points. Another three from Matt with 11 seconds cut the Liberty Mountain View lead to one point at the end of the quarter, with the Eagles leading 43-42.
A quick basket from Liberty Mountain View put the lead back to three points to start the fourth quarter, but two free throws from Smith cut it back to one, and from there it was back and forth again. Matt gave the Panthers the lead with a two point jump shot before the Eagles took it back on a three pointer. Free throw's from Smith again cut the lead to one, and later in the quarter Matt was fouled on a three point shot, hitting all three free throws to give North Platte a two point lead.
After taking the lead back, the lead changed hands three more times, with two ties along the way, and with the game tied at 54 all and 1:04 left in regulation the Panthers started to pull away with free throws from Matt and Smith. North Platte led 61-54 before a three point shot by the Eagles with three seconds remaining fell for the final shot of the game, the buzzer sounding with the Panthers and Dearborn celebrating.
"Looking at the crowd after the game, I'm glad (Athletic Director) Ryan Davis stopped me because I was just looking at the amount of support," Kemper says. "Especially my family, I had four rows of family so it means a lot, it would be easy for my dad who coaches over at Mid-Buchanan to root against us and not want us to do well, but seeing him cheering us on, helping us with scouts, my family, my girlfriend, everybody just so much support and it means so much to me."
Matt led the team with 29 points and had seven rebounds. Armstrong added 12 points while Wright chipped in 10 points. Smith scored eight points.
Matt and Armstrong, along with fellow seniors Hunter Palmer and Spencer Hyde were part of a big shift in culture when Kemper took over the North Platte program in the 2021-22 season and the Panthers finished with just nine wins in both of his first two seasons. Since then, North Platte has gone 65-21.
"I was very demanding on them very early on in their career, I knew down the road they had potential to do some special things, so I made sure they stayed true to the program, I got onto them, I made them mold into what I saw for their future and I think they did a really good job of buying into that," Kemper says. "I was a 24 year old coach at the time, they could have said oh he doesn't know what he's talking about we're not going to listen to him, but they bought in and they went to work, whether that's playing the 25 plus summer games that we do or all the practices, or all the 6ams, whatever we're doing and I'm really proud of each of them.
North Platte loses just those four seniors with several from this team set to return next season. Kemper knows from his time at Mid-Buchanan what kind of motivation that this trip to Columbia can be for those younger players that will still be with the Panthers.
"At Mid-Buchanan I was a player for their first Final Four, and once we got that one it just kind of opened the door and the program was like oh we can do this and two years later Mid-Buchanan went back," Kemper says. "So one of the things that i think this does is it shows we can do this, you put in the work, all these guys here put either work into their body whether weight lifting or their putting work like Brenden put hours and hours onto his shot, or just playing together in the summer that you can do great things if you're playing together and you're putting in work."
North Platte finished the season 27-5.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.