The Northampton boys basketball team came into Tuesday night’s game with Easton with an opportunity to wrap a district playoff bid by winning their eighth league game of the season to guarantee at least a .500 record in conference.

Instead, the 4-11 Rovers dominated the offensive glass and held the K-Kids to 1 of 18 shooting from beyond the three-point line to take a 66-50 win back home.

Northampton head coach Matt Scholl was unsparing in his postgame comments, “We can’t make layups because we’re not tough and when you’re not tough, you stick to shooting threes. And if you go 1 of 18, you hope you play good defense. But if you’re not tough it’s hard to play defense. Easton just beat us down. They came in here to our gym and beat us down.”

Northampton led out of the gate 11-7 after the first five minutes of the game. But Easton outscored the Kids 10-2 over the final two minutes of the first period and sported a 17-13 lead when the horn sounded.

A six-point run late in the second quarter got Northampton to within 28-27, but the Rovers hit a three just before the halftime buzzer to reclaim a four-point lead.

The Kids’ offense ground to a halt in the third quarter as both Brady Simock and Noah Walakovits spent time on the bench after picking up their third fouls. Easton built an 11-point lead by the end of the period and Northampton was unable to make a run early in the final quarter to close the gap.

Ethan Raphun led the Kids with 23 points. Simock scored 7. Walakovits had 6. Jake Raysley, Korbin Sollars, and Jimmy Everett all had four. Leo Regec scored 2.

The Kids are 9-8 overall and 7-5 in the EPC with 5 games left to play in the season. They travel to Liberty on Friday and then host Palmerton on Saturday and Nazareth on Tuesday. The team finishes with a home game against Becahi and a game at Freedom.

One more EPC win will get them into districts and qualifying for the conference tournament is still possible. There are 6 teams with 6, 7, or 8 league wins vying for the final 4 spots.

“If they don’t find this soon, they’re going to waste an opportunity. They’re going to look back on this two years, three years from now and they’re going to regret it because the opportunity is there. But we’re not mature enough to handle it right now. So I’m hoping, I’m hoping it clicks at some point,” concluded Scholl.