Boys Hoops: Catalina Foothills extends win streak to seven games

December 15, 2015 by Andy Morales, AZPreps365


Nik Nehls (Andy Morales/AZPreps365.com)

The season started out kind of shaky for Catalina Foothills with a blowout loss to Shadow Mountain at the Gilbert Basketball Classic followed up by another loss to Red Mountain the next day. But preseason tournaments are designed to help teams discover who they are and that's exactly what the Falcons did.

The Falcons reeled off seven straight wins since then including a 57-47 win against Buena at home Monday night. Catalina Foothills is now 4-0 in non invitational games and 3-0 in divisional games. It's a long season but the Falcons have definitely taken an early lead.

The Colts, on the other hand, went 6-0 to start their season, including four wins at their own preseason tournament. A loss at Ironwood Ridge ten days ago ended the win streak but Buena is still sitting pretty strong at 8-2 overall and 4-2 in games that count towards power points. The only negative so far are the two losses within their division.

Catalina Foothills senior standout Nik Nehls came up big in the win against Buena with a game-high 22 points including three 3-pointers and a crowd-pleasing dunk. Still, Buena had several chances to pull out the win.

The Colts took an early 12-7 lead only to have Catalina Foothills go on an 11-1 run to close out the last four minutes of the first quarter to take an 18-13 lead. But Buena outscored Catalina Foothills 16-6 in the second quarter to take a 29-24 lead into the locker room.

Neither team wanted to take control of the game, and besides the 22 points from Nehls, no other Falcon broke double figures. For Buena, freshman Grant Ward was piling up the points and finished with 14 but he spent large chunks of time on the bench due to foul trouble. His freshman teammate Kino Bellinger also finished with 14.

Nehls scored nine points in the third quarter including a 3-pointer to put the Falcons up 37-30 with 3:50 left but Buena started another run and cut the lead down to 37-34. But this time Catalina Foothills held firm thanks to a dunk by Nehls and two buckets by James Stewart in the final 11 seconds.

Leading 43-36 to start the fourth, Catalina Foothills opened up a 57-40 lead with 2:21 left with Ward on the bench. Ward reentered the game and it sparked another run but the Colts ran out of time and lost 57-47.

Catalina Foothills will play at Sunnyside on Friday and will head out to California to take part in the MaxPreps Holiday Classic. Buena will travel to Salpointe on Friday and the Colts will take part in the White Mountain Classic over the winter break.