Hawk Rally Comes Up Short

EG FALLS TO COLO-NESCO 55-53 IN SEMIFINAL ROUND

A torrid, last-minute comeback fueled by 3 three-point shots came up just short for East Greene Tuesday night, as the Hawks fell 55-53 to Colo-Nesco in the district semifinal rounds.

Colo-Nesco was ahead by 9 with less than a minute left in the game but EG started hitting its three-point shots while CN was having trouble at the foul line. According to the Ames Tribune, EG almost pulled off this foul-and-three strategy and had cut the lead to just 2 when Aaron Lyons hit a 3-pointer with 2 seconds left. But the Hawks were not able to foul again on the ensuing throw-in and CN got the win.

EG (18-5) closes out its best season in more than 25 years while Colo-Nesco (20-2) moves on to the district final in Story City tonight against Coon Rapids-Bayard, a 44-23 winner Tuesday over Van Meter.

The winner in Story City tonight will move on the substate game in Marshalltown on Monday against the winner of tonight’s game between Lynville-Sully and North Tama (Traer). The winner there advances on to the state tournament, which gets underway March 8 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

Lynville-Sully, Colo-Nesco and North Tama are all ranked in the Top 10 Class 1A Associated Press rankings while Coon Rapids-Bayard is coming off an appearance in last year’s 1A state tourney.

Against EG tonight, Brandon Eley, who has earned a basketball scholarship to play on AIB’s first basketball team, scored 31 points for the Royals, and hit some key 3-pointers in the third quarter as CN started to pull away, leading by 12 at the break, 45-33.

EG then went into rally mode, just as they had in the first half. The Hawks opened the game slowly, falling behind in the first quarter 9-2 and were behind 14-9 at the end of the period. EG got some solid inside play from senior center Nic Nicolaisen in the second quarter to take the lead at 25-21 with two minutes left on the clock. Eley came back with two three-pointers to spur the Royals and go up 29-27 at the half.

In the third, it looked like the Royals might run away with the game with a 16-6 run but the Hawks hung in there and kept their cool and whittled away at the lead in the final stages of a pressure-packed game on the opponent’s home floor. Zach Dearborn paced the Hawks with 16 points and Nicolaisen had 15.

EYE ON GJ SAYS: Chalk this up under the “almost great glory moments” of EG hoop history, marked by the heart-wrenching loss in the 1961 girls district basketball championship, where the undefeated and highly-ranked Hawkettes, led by Hall of Famer Pam Slock, lost to Cedar Valley, coming up short of the vaunted “Sweet 16” state tourney that year by just 2 points; the EG loss to Jefferson in the 1966 district boys finals in the old one-class-for all era of tournament play which ended EG’s undefeated season and sent Jefferson to the substate against Ames, an even larger school (Ames won and went to state—just 1 of 8 teams); and the shock in 1983 when the Hawks, undefeated and ranked No. 2 for most of the season and coming off a state tourney appearance the year before, were downed by conference rival Glidden-Ralston in a barn-burner sectional final.

Plus there was last year’s substate 3-2 baseball loss to Ar-We-Va, along with other “almost there” moments to note, like EG’s loss in the baseball substate the fall of 1961 and the summer tournament substate loss in the summer of 1983. Those latter two tournaments each had just a four-team field, so EG was among the best 8 teams in baseball those two years (and the tourney fields were later increased to that number). And in 1949, behind the scoring of Jerry Doran, Grand Junction had advanced to the substate final which marks yet another “almost to state” boys basketball moment, and in 1955 Rippey made it through the “B” sectional, the “B” district, and the first round of a one-class-for-all substate before falling in the semifinal round to Ames, which went on to win the substate and eventually the 1955 state championship, the first ever played at Vet’s Auditorium, which had just opened.

Talk about hard luck. After Rippey’s run through a one-class tournament in ’55, it was the next year the Iowa High School Athletic Association divided the tournament into two classes at state (A and B from 1957 to 1960), and again when the Hawks were overpowered by a much larger school in ’66, well, again, the IAHSAA apparently realized there is a big difference in enrollment between Rippey and Ames and East Greene and Ames, and Jefferson, and again went to a two-class tournament the following year.

OK, at least maybe they felt our pain or something, but could they not have made those two-class tourneys the year we had those super-great teams?? Or did they do that just to rub it in our face or something (we’ll reward you small schools after taking our pleasure from watching the teams in eastern Greene County scale the mountain—and not make it, hahaha)? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?