BOURBON - For two teams that are supposed to be headed in opposite directions, NorthWood and Triton had many similarities in their game on Friday night.

With four returning starters and a wealth of talent, the Panthers are expected to have an exciting season. On the flip side, the Trojans don't return a single starter from last year's 16-6 team and are expected to take their lumps early.

However, Triton led NorthWood by two points at the half before the Panthers won 50-37 in a game that was as close as four points with two minutes to play.

Both teams entered Triton's gym without any game experience this year, and it showed early. NorthWood was 6 of 20 in the first half and Triton was 6 of 19 as both teams tried to gain some offensive flow.

Triton went into the half leading 15-13.

"In the first half, we did basically what we wanted to do," Triton head coach Kevin O'Rourke said. "We didn't intend to play so much zone, but it worked pretty well so we stuck with it. Offensively, we missed some open shots, but it wasn't so much our shooting as it was turnovers. There was a lot of time eaten up in the first half and that's fine. We're not here to set a scoring record. We're here to win a basketball game."

In the third quarter, the offenses began to pick up a bit. Nick Treber scored on a layup with 4:09 to play to give the Trojans a 22-19 advantage, but the Triton offense went into hibernation for the rest of the period.

NorthWood closed out with 11 consecutive points as Jake Yoder knocked in a three-pointer and a jumper and Aaron Huber scored four points to give the Panthers a 30-22 lead heading into the final eight minutes.

In the fourth quarter, NorthWood kept Triton at arms length for the first four minutes and held a 37-29 lead.

But the Trojans had a little 6-2 spurt capped off by a Treber three-point play to cut the lead to just four points with 2:15 to play. But the NorthWood experience took over as the Panthers answered with an 11-2 run to close out the game.

"I'm disappointed because we've got a great group of young men that have really worked hard and are just inexperienced," O'Rourke said. "We didn't execute very well and that's just a sign of inexperience. Next time we're in a game like this, we'll be able to say that we've been there before, and we can learn from it. Even with all that said, our kids showed great heart and they battled back to within four points with two minutes to go."

Bobby Brown led a balanced NorthWood scoring attack with 11 points and five rebounds. Huber had 10 points and Yoder had nine for the Panthers.

Treber led Triton with 11 points, while Kyle Gould scored nine on four of five shooting. However, the Triton troubles came in handling the ball. After just five first half turnovers, the Trojans gave the ball away 12 times in the second half while only forcing seven.

"Triton played well and they were well prepared," NorthWood head coach Dan Gunn said. "In the second half, we finally found a defense that seemed to give them a little bit of a problem and it got us over the tough spots.

"You don't want to show everybody everything you do in the first game, but by gosh tonight we had to."

NorthWood (1-0) will host East Noble Friday while Triton (0-1) will be at Elkhart Baptist on Tuesday. [[In-content Ad]]