26 games, 26 wins. That was the record that Bob Fritz, legendary coach of BV Northwest, possessed against Blue Valley until Friday night. On that night, a ghost was vanquished, and the Tigers took down the Huskies and won, 69-60.

Sophomore point-guard Tyler Geiman had another strong game and led the team in scoring with 20 points. Geiman said it was great for the program to finally get a win against BV Northwest.

“Fritz had been 26-0 against Blue Valley, and this is our first win against Northwest,” he said. “It will give us some confidence going into our next game, and we should be playing pretty well.”

After three consecutive losses, including two in the EKL, the game against the Huskies was nothing short of a must-win to restore confidence.

Right at tipoff, things began going in the right direction. The Tigers, although outsized by the Huskies, were much quicker on offense. After trailing at the end of the first quarter, BV went into the locker room at the half leading 28-27.

After the game resumed in the third quarter, the Tigers could do no wrong, outscoring the Huskies 22-11 to enter the fourth quarter in position to finally break the streak, leading 50-38.

However, it would not come easy, and the Huskies refused to roll over. The lead was whittled to four by the resilient Huskies, and they began to foul, forcing the Tigers to win the game at the line.

They did just that. BV was 23 out of 26 from the line in the second half and finally pulled away to put the streak to bed, winning 69-60. Assistant coach Brian Mowry emphasized the role good free throw shooting played in the victory.

“The biggest factor [in the win] was that we made 23 [out of] 26 free throws in the second half,” he said. “We had been averaging about 56% in previous games, and we shot 88% tonight.”