North Callaway crowned two kids for Courtwarming on Friday night, but the Thunderbirds were all worthy of a crown during a game.

North Callaway vs Louisiana Courtwarming Photo Gallery

The boys defeated Eastern Missouri Conference foe Louisiana 75-59 after tallying a season-high 19 assists to score a season-high. The Thunderbirds had four score in double figures and two more came close to double figures.

Jamarion Glover led North Callaway (3-4, 2-1 EMO) with 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists, Dalton Brewer followed with 13 points, Jake Blevins had 11 points and Levi Drake finished with 10 points. Courtwarming King Clayton Moore — who was crowned with Queen Natalie Shryock after the game — had eight points and nine rebounds, and Austin Brown had eight points. 

“Our press was really good, especially early on, getting a lot of turnovers leading to easy offense,” head coach Matt Miller said. “When you’re playing at that pace with that many possessions, it’s going to be more high-scoring for both teams. It works in our favor because we have a lot of guys we can throw out there.”

Louisiana (3-5, 0-3 EMO) finished with 21 turnovers, and North Callaway had 11 steals. Drake and Moore each had three steals to lead the team.

Glover had a big second half by scoring 14 of his 21 points in the latter two quarters and six of his rebounds were on the offensive glass. He said the coaching staff does well in hyping up the team, and they all come together like a family.

“We realized how to move the ball a little bit and play more together instead of just taking shots,” Glover said. “We did very well tonight but could’ve kept turnovers a little bit lower and made a little more free throws. It’s nothing we can’t fix by getting back in the gym.”

Louisiana did have two 20-point scorers in Javon Ries and Kane Mayfield, who also had 11 rebounds. The Bulldogs cut their deficit to single digits for the first time since the first quarter with a score at 46-37 North Callaway. 

After a Thunderbird timeout, North Callaway increased its lead to 52-37 after finding several open layups at the rim behind the Louisiana defense. Miller said the Thunderbirds needed to “refocus” and limited its turnovers once again.

“Louisiana was trying to get back in it and press and did a good job of trying to hang around and make a game of it,” Miller said. “Once we solved their press, if you don’t turn the basketball over, a lot of times you’re going to get easy layups on the back side of it. The guys did a really good job of cutting and moving without the ball.”

The victory ended a three-game losing streak for North Callaway. The most recent loss was a 66-52 defeat at home by another conference foe Van-Far. The Thunderbirds led 38-30 at halftime after what Miller described as the team’s “best half of basketball all season” only to score 14 points in the second half. 

Miller said while North Callaway didn’t “set the tone” the way it wanted to right away in the second half against Louisiana, his team was able to get there eventually. Glover said the guys got the message.

“We played a very good first half against Van-Far, but we should’ve kept it up,” Glover said. “As a team, we all realized we needed to play a hard four quarters. We don’t play one half hard and just give up.”

Glover has emerged as a ferocious rebound threat for North Callaway in the sophomore’s first varsity season. He already has four double-digit rebound games and two of them were numbered at 18 and 17 boards. While those numbers are big, Glover wants to reach higher.

“One of my goals is to get the rebound record, which is 20,” Glover said. 

Miller said North Callaway is capable of competing with anybody as long as it controls what it can control like rebounds. That will definitely be put to the test in the Thunderbirds’ first game back from Christmas break at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 3 at Hallsville (4-1). 

“We’ve got to be able to rebound the basketball. We didn’t do a great job of it tonight, but it was better,” Miller said. “If we’re competitive on the boards, we have a chance of competing with a lot of teams and also if we’re not turning the basketball over. It really comes down to those fundamental things. We can hang and play with a lot of teams on our schedule based on our size, athleticism, our depth and we can put the ball in the hole and score it.”