A large, enthusiastic, pre-holiday crowd descended on Pete Schneider Gymnasium Friday night as the Northampton boys basketball team hosted defending District XI 6A champion Parkland and their reigning EPC MVP, Nick Coval.

Coval did not disappoint as the Davidson-bound senior scored 34 points to lead the Trojans to a 62-54 win over the K-Kids to snap Northampton’s 5-game winning streak.

However, for those people that believe in moral victories, the Kids’ performance showed that they can hang in games with the consensus best team in the area.

Northampton head coach Matt Scholl praised Coval and Parkland.

“He’s a Division I basketball player,” he said. “You’re not just going to go stop him. He played exceptionally well today and they did a good job screening for him.”

“Every team in this division (EPC West) is going to battle. We can play with them. We can play with these teams and our guys believe that. We’re close. There are a couple of things we can clean up. We’re going to be there in the end. Our guys believe that and that’s important.”.

Northampton displayed their resilience in the first quarter. Coval swished four straight 3-pointers to stake Parkland to a 17-5 lead with just over three-and-a-half minutes left in the period. The Kids ran off 8 consecutive points to get back in the game and only trailed 19-13 when the horn sounded.

The second quarter saw a frenetic pace as both teams got off 17 shots at the basket over the 8-minute span. Parkland got a non-Coval three-pointer with 5 seconds before intermission to make the score 35-27 at the break.

Both teams struggled offensively coming out of the break. They each turned the ball over 4 times in the third period and managed to score 7 points apiece. The Trojans took a 42-34 lead into the final quarter.

Northampton cut the lead to 5 right out of the gate in the fourth period, but Parkland managed to build the margin back to 11 points over the next 4 minutes. Once against, the Kids fought back, going on an 8-1 run that got them to 54-50 with 1:12 left.

From there, it turned into a free throw drill for the Trojans and they went 8 for 8 from the line the rest of way to seal the victory.

Brody Graff led Northampton with 15 points. J.J. Kolumber tallied a dozen. Shakim Dunbar, in his best performance of the season, scored 10. Noah Walakovits had three 3’s for a total of 9 points. Tristan Pinnock scored 6.