“It’s a great feeling,” NPL coach Bear Mattison said. “We really stressed effort. The first couple of weeks we weren’t in game shape, and we really lacked effort. Over the last two or three weeks we’ve been really stressing that, so when we came here, and executed all night long it makes me feel really good as a coach.”

They did most of the executing on the defensive end, holding the Panthers to 10-for-44 from the field, including a goose egg in the fourth quarter.

“That’s two games in a row where we held the opponent to a scoreless quarter; I can’t ask much more out of my defense than zero points, right?” Mattison said. “Northeast Bradford, they’re such a great basketball team that’s tough to do.”

They didn’t let the Panthers get out and run, did a good job using their length to clog up the paint, and watched as NEB shot 2-for-21 from beyond the arc.

“We’ve been stressing we’ve got to run the floor when we need to run the floor, and then if we don’t need to run the floor, we just slow it down, and we did,” Mattison said.

Kreger had three 3-balls en route to the 25 points, while adding 10 boards to get the double-double, plus four steals.

“He really struggled at our Christmas Tournament,” remarked Mattison. “And then tonight I just gave him all the confidence in the world. I gave him a green light to go to the rim, and when he has an opportunity to shoot the ball he did. He hit a couple threes there in the first half, and that really got the offense going. He’s a phenomenal player.”

Connor Lewis added 10 points and 15 boards for a double-double, plus three steals, as Evan McTish notched six points, and two steals.

Landon Mattern had five points, with Brody Grinnell getting two points, four boards, four assists, and three steals.

Dayton Russell had nine points, eight boards, and three steals to lead NEB, as Eli Stanton finished with six points, and two steals.

Cooper Brown netted three points to go with eight boards, as Nate Gross, and Clay Wilks had two points apiece.

It was 2-2 to start when Kreger hit back to back 3-balls to make it 8-2. That sparked a 10-0 run that saw the Mounties take a 12-2 lead before Stanton hit a lay-up.

Kreger came back with a lay-up of his own, followed by a Mattern 3-ball for a 17-4 score after one.

Stanton opened the second quarter with a jumper to make it an 11-point game, but NPL came back with eight straight points, six of them by Kreger to extend the lead to 25-6 halfway through the second quarter.

Russell was able to get some moment for NEB down the stretch of the first half, scoring seven straight to make it a 25-13 game at the break.

NPL came out of the locker rooms and scored four straight to extend their lead to 29-13.

Wilks would get a bucket inside for NEB, only to see NPL go on another 4-0 run to push their lead to 33-15.

The Panthers would rally after that, going on a 7-1 spurt to cut it to 34-22 as they tried to get it to single digits going into the final frame.

Kreger, though, had the final say of the quarter, hitting two free throws for a 36-22 contest heading to the fourth.

It was all Mounties there as they out scored NEB 12-0 to pull away, with four different players getting into the scoreboard for NPL.

NEB (7-2) will look to break their 2-game skid when they host Canton on Tuesday, while NPL (3-4) welcomes Williamson.