• Photo Showcase: State tournament: Thursday
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LINCOLN — It came as no surprise that the Class C-1 first-round game between Norfolk Catholic and Grand Island Central Catholic came down to a final possession.
The difference was simple. Fifth-seeded Norfolk Catholic hit its last shot. Fourth-seeded Central Catholic didn't.
Ethan Brozek's basket in the lane with 6.7 seconds left gave the Knights a two-point lead. Central Catholic's Turner Fahey's long 3-pointer at the buzzer bounced off the rim as Norfolk Catholic advanced with a 50-48 victory Thursday at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln.
Norfolk Catholic coach Shane Anderson said the final play wasn't exactly what the Knights (23-2) had drawn up.
"We just tried to run an isolation play," Anderson said. "We saw a mismatch. They kept switching the last couple of times down and we just hadn't taken advantage of it.
"It didn't go quite the way we wanted it to. We had Kelby (Seyl) trying to get open and maybe would be the angle of the pass, but they did a good job of being physical with him. Ben Rowse threw a nice lob pass in where only Ethan could get it and he did a good job finishing."
Central Catholic coach Bill Gavers sid he would have to look at the film to see exactly what happened on Norfolk Catholic's final possession, but he thought the Crusaders did a pretty good job defensively.
"I thought we had good ball pressure," Gavers said. "They kind of threw it up. It looked like we had pretty good help side. It was just a 6-6 guy with long arms who kind of won the battle of going and get it.
"It wasn't a lack of effort certainly. Our guys were scraping and trying to get it."
Brozek and Ben Uhing led Norfolk Catholic with 16 points each. The Knights advanced to face two-time defending state champion Hastings St. Cecilia in Friday's semifinals.
Fahey led the Crusaders (21-5) with 18 points.
Grand Island CC (21-5)......................12 13 14 9 -- 48
Norfolk Catholic (23-2)..................8 13 19 10 -- 50
• GICC: Erick Ortiz 4, Tyler O'Connor 2, Turner Fahey 18, Seth Wardyn 3, Casey Wiens 10, Brandon Meyer 11.
• NC: Austin Ketter 5, Jarren Heng 6, Ethan Brozek 16, Kelby Seyl 7, Ben Uhing 16.
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