TILDEN — Having defeated two of the top four seeds in the Nionbrara Valley Conference Tournament, Elgin Public-Pope John saw their run come to an end Saturday with a 43 to 17 loss to North Central.
The championship game was expected to be a battle between the two schools. The Wolfpack was seeking to cap one of the best weeks of basketball in recent memory. On the other bench, the Knights were looking to repeat as conference champs.
However, the anticipated battle never materialized.
EPPJ kept pace in the early going. After the Knights bolted out to a 7-0 lead, EPPJ fought back with a trey from Allyson Selting and two-pointers from Kaylee Ramold and Kirsten Krebs to trail 9 to 7 after one quarter.
Ramold added a free throw at the 6:49 mark of the second quarter to cut the lead to one, nine to eight.
Then the Wolfpack offense went into a deep freeze. They would not score again until more than 17 minutes ticked off the scoreboard clock. The drought ended at 5:05 left in the fourth quarter when Skyler Meis connected on a 10-footer along the baseline. That made the score 37 to 10. Meis would add three more points and freshman Brenna Martinsen came off the bench to make four free throws to close out the game.
Meis led EPPJ with five points, Brenna Martinsen added four.
Seventeen points was the lowest point total for the Wolfpack this season as their record dropped to 16-5 with the loss.
The Wolfpack will wrap up the regular season Thursday night at Summerland
