North Platte boys hoops use second half comeback to win Class 3 Third Place Game; best finish in school history

(COLUMBIA, MO) - It can be difficult to find motivation to play in a third place game, but on Saturday the North Platte High School boys basketball team dug deep found a way.

The Panthers rallied from being down 14 points in the third quarter to come back and take a late lead in the fourth and win 61-57 over Liberty (Mountain View) in the Class 3 Third Place Game.

Senior Brenden Matt once again led the way for North Platte, finishing with 29 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists in his final high school game. Senior Dylan Armstrong also had a strong farewell performance, finishing with 12 points on four 3-pointers. Junior Isaac Wright finished with 10 points as well for North Platte.

"Every day at practice, (Braydn) Kemper's always talking about how we have to do what we can to win the game," said Armstrong. "The district championship game, we were down by 19 and coming back from that game, it really like showed out to us that we have a lot of potential on this team. "We just go out there and try and fight our hardest every game."

"These guys, they're like family to me. Dylan (Armstrong) and I have been playing together since we were in kindergarten. We used to butt heads when we were little, but you know we're pretty good friends now I'd say," said Matt. "Spencer (Hyde) too, we played together back in kindergarten. I played baseball with Hunter (Palmer) back in 3rd grade before he moved here. It's amazing to say that we made it this far with this group of guys."

"I live by a core value of FTCL. I don't make it very public, but it stands for fearlessness, tenacity, community, and love. One of our things is we need to make a program, we need to have a program that when we step on the floor, the community is proud of," said North Platte head coach Braydn Kemper. "Whether that's us playing hard, playing a fun brand of basketball, go have fun. Go show out for them, make them proud. I think today I was very proud of pretty much most of our aspects of our game. I no doubt believe that we made this community proud today."

North Platte finishes the season with a 27-5 record and the best finish in school history.