WAVERLY - A long road trip ended with another emotional victory for the Seward boys basketball team.

After trailing 14-2 early in the game, the Class B eighth-ranked Bluejays found their way to a 55-53 victory against Waverly on Friday in front of a packed house at Waverly Middle School. It was Seward's 11th straight road game, dating to Dec. 18.

Seward never led until late in the third quarter and had to hold off one final surge by Waverly, even though the Vikings played the final 21/2 minutes without standout Tyler Evans, who fouled out.

The Vikings pulled to 54-53 with 36 seconds remaining when James Doran scored on an inbounds play. But Waverly's Nigel Stephenson missed a shot on the baseline with 20 seconds to play, and later a decent look at a three-pointer at the buzzer that was off to the left of the rim.

Stephenson hit three long three-pointers earlier in the game, but had to handle the ball more once Evans fouled out.

After Evans scored 18 points in the first half, Seward switched to a zone defense in addition to always keeping a man on Evans. Evans got off only two field-goal attempts in the second half and finished with a game-high 24 points.

Seward (9-7) also did a better job of working the ball inside in the second half, when the Bluejays outscored Waverly 32-24.

"I'm pretty fired up right now, to be honest with you. That's a tremendous win for our basketball team," said Seward coach Jim Placke. "Evans is a tremendous player, and we couldn't guard him man-for-man in the first half."

Micah Kohlway led Seward with 21 points, about 10 more than his season average. Garrett Vanis had nine points and Titus Tvrdy and Sam Brauer scored seven apiece.

Last week, Seward won the Central Conference Tournament by beating Fairbury, avenging an earlier loss to Aurora and edging York in the finals.

Placke felt going in that six teams had a chance to win the tourney, but it was Seward that prevailed and won the conference tourney for the first time in Placke's 16 years as coach at the school.

"Seward hadn't won conference in a while, and it was a great feeling," Vanis said. "We always felt like we had the talent, but had never shown it at conference."