MIDDLEBURY - Two small boys strolled in front of the crowd sitting in the bleachers, each waving a sign made out of notebook paper. One boy's sign said "Thanx for practice." The sign the boy carried behind him said "Warsaw."

The two were Northridge fans, and like all the rowdy and noisy Northridge fans, they celebrated Friday night. They had reason to. For the first time in school history, the Northridge Raider basketball team beat Warsaw, 71-64.

"It was a rough day at the office," Warsaw coach Al Rhodes said.

Warsaw fell to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the Northern Lakes Conference. Northridge, which starts three sophomores, improved to 6-0 overall and 1-0 in the NLC.

Since 1988, the Tigers had owned the Raiders.

No more.

"This was a big win," Northridge coach Steve Austin said, "because we had never beaten (Warsaw) before, and in order to have a chance to win the conference, we have to beat one of the big two: Plymouth and Warsaw. It helped us gauge where we are. You beat Al Rhodes' team, you've done something."

What Northridge did was feast on Warsaw turnovers the second half. The Tigers led 31-29 at halftime, but thanks to turnovers and several missed layups, Northridge outscored Warsaw 34-19 from the start of the third quarter to take a 63-50 lead with two minutes left.

The Raiders forced countless steals when the Tigers tried to feed the ball into the low post. Austin knew that was coming; Warsaw's four post players have been lauded and applauded all year.

"The second half, we clamped down on the inside," Austin said. "(Warsaw) was really hurting us on the inside, which is Al's strategy. They have four bangers. Our kids hung in there, hung in there. Eventually people get tired and make mistakes. I think that's what happened.

"If they would have gotten the ball inside freely, we would have been in big trouble. Number one, because they're going to score, or number two, they're going to go to the free-throw line. We work a lot on defense in getting in the lanes. It's a different style of defense, a little man-to-man that we got from Dick Bennett, who's at Wisconsin now. We try to deny the post, and as long as we have weak-side help, it's going to work."

While Rhodes credited the Raider defense, he questioned the play by his guards. The Tigers had 27 turnovers their last game; they finished with 24 against Northridge.

"Our decision-making at the guard position was horrendous in terms of throwing the ball right into a crowd," he said. "We're going to work hard to fix that. If I have to get different players, I'll get different players. I'll bring up players up off the B-team; I don't care. We're not going to have that kind of decision-making again."

Offensively, Northridge sophomore guard Rob Weirich connected with sophomore forward Kevin Weirich on several back-door plays in the third quarter, a quarter that Northridge outscored Warsaw 18-10. Rob delivered the passes; Kevin, who led the Raiders with 25 points, made the layups. The Raiders tied the game at 33-33 when Kevin slashed behind the Tiger defense for a lay-up. Kevin gave the Raiders the lead for good at 36-33 with 6:09 left in the third quarter when he made lay-up and converted a free throw after a foul.

"They pretty much took us out of everything that quarter," Rhodes said. "That gave them the lead. They spread the floor nice, and they had been doing that to everybody. They had a lot of cuts to the basket which eventually led to foul trouble for the Tigers."

The Tigers closed within one at 47-46 with six minutes to go in the fourth quarter, but missed opportunities haunted them throughout the game and prevented them from claiming the lead.

"The telling story is, our kids kept fighting," Rhodes said. "There was a stretch where we cut the (lead) back and we were darn close. We missed about three fastbreak lay-ups. We convert those plays, after stealing it from them at the other end, maybe we even end up with a little lead going into the last five minutes.

"They finished plays; we didn't. You cannot get steals, go to the basket and miss layups and expect to win. They were the better team tonight. There's no getting around that."

Kids from Northridge High School swarmed the court after the win.

"You can't beat this crowd," Austin said. "I've come from different schools. There's been nothing like this. We talk about how this is our house and you don't come into our house and (win). The crowd's a big part of it."

Warsaw hosts Twin Lakes in the Holiday Tournament on Dec. 26. [[In-content Ad]]