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| Nick Varner 22 pts, 10 rebs. (photo by Jim Lindquist) |
The victory advanced North (22-6) to this Friday's title game against Rochester John Marshall. The loss brought down the curtain on the Farmington (13-14) season.
North connected on 35 of its 65 field goal attempts (54 percent) in the contest but was especially proficient from long range, hitting 13 of 28 for 46 percent.
"They are very good and could have beaten just about anyone with how well they shot the basketball," Tiger coach Shane Wyandt said.
"We came out a little jittery on offense and for some reason we had some guys missing assignments on defense. That mixed with how tough they played just killed us."
Just as telling was the Panthers' dominance on the glass where they held a one-sided 39-21 rebounding advantage, including 19 at the offensive end. Farmington also turned the ball over15 turnovers.
North led 51-33 at intermission and never led by fewer than 14 points in the second half.
"We made a run to cut the lead from 22 to 14," Wyandt said. "After that we had three straight stops on defense but unfortunately we turned the ball over twice and missed a shot.
"I give our guys credit for continuing to come back with runs of their own but it was just too far to come back with how well North was playing."
Junior JP Macura, who burned Farmington for 36 points when the teams met in December, had 35 in the re-match and got plenty of help from Zach Creighton (15), Grant Erickson (13) and Kyrell Newell (11).
The outcome overshadowed a strong performance by Tiger junior Nick Varner who scored a season-high 22 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Darren Beenken closed out his Tiger career with 16 points. Eli Rockett netted 10 and also grabbed six rebounds.
