Slidell sophomore forward Cash Noday led the Hounds’ offense with 33 points in an 80-53 home victory over Bowie Tuesday. MICAH MCCARTNEY | WCMESSENGER
Making his varsity debut last season, Slidell forward Cash Noday established his spot in the Hounds starting lineup quickly.
The reigning Wise County Newcomer of the Year hasn’t slowed down in his second season.
Returning to the court following the Thanksgiving break, Noday dropped a team-high 33 points — bucketing nine field goals and four 3-pointers — in Slidell’s 80-53 home win against Bowie Tuesday.
“It was a good win, and most of what I did was because of my teammates helping me out,” Noday said. “We broke their press a bunch, got through it and got the points we needed to win… It’s a big responsibility to be the leader of the team this year — I’ve got to keep the other guys in line and make sure no one’s doing too much in our out of the game.”
The win over Bowie improved Slidell’s record to 7-2 through the team’s first nine games.
“I feel like we put three decent quarters of basketball together,” Slidell coach Casey Pierce said. “We got a little helter-skelter in the second period, but for the most part we executed well. Bowie does put a lot of pressure on their opponents, which was a concern — if you handle it, you can have success, and if you don’t, it can lead to a lot of problems. We handled that pressure pretty well, and we got some pretty good looks out of it.”
Noday started his impressive scoring night with five points — two field goals and a 1-for-2 trip to the free throw line — in Slidell’s 18-13 first-quarter run.
“We were a little sketchy starting off,” Pierce said. We missed some easy stuff. But once we settled down, we did a better job finishing and shooting the ball well.”
Shaking off the cold start, the second-year starter heated up and added 13 points in the second quarter. The Hounds took a 7-point advantage into the locker room, 37-30.
“Cash is our best offensive player — he has really grown, basketball-wise, and he’s really matured since last year,” Pierce said. “He started as a freshman for the majority of the year, and that’s a tough situation to handle. But I think that experience has benefited him this year. Scoring the ball has never been his issue, [but] his rebounding has improved, and he’s corrected some of the issues he had last year with turning the ball over.”
Noday was held scoreless in the third quarter, but the Hounds widened the scoring gap with a 16-12 drive. He saved his strongest performance for the final eight minutes, scoring 15 of the Hounds 27 fourth-quarter points.
Along with Noday’s heroics, the Hounds had three other players reach double-digit points — Carter Pierce (18), Mayson Taylor (14) and Austin Zuniga (10).
“Mayson is probably our brightest spot of the season so far,” Pierce said. “We knew what was coming back, but Mayson’s helped balance us out so that other teams can’t key off on Cash and Carter too much… Austin got off to a tough start tonight, but got back on track and hit a couple of big buckets in transition.”
Ryder Kolar had a big game on the boards, leading the Hounds with 15 rebounds.
Slidell will now head to the Lipan tournament Thursday through Saturday. The Hounds will face North Crowley JV, Tolar and Lipan in pool play.
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