Conference
champion Exira/Elk Horn-Kimballton proved to be too much to handle for East
Greene Tuesday night, rolling to an easy 62-15 win in Rippey. The game closed
out the Hawkettes’ regular season at 2-19. EG finished last in the Rolling
Hills Conference at 2-16 while Exira/EHK took top honors with a 17-1 mark. The
Spartans are 18-3 overall.
Both teams enter regional play tonight. EEHK is a favorite in Region 7, which also features Adair-Casey from the Rolling Hills and Coon Rapids-Bayard from the West Central Conference. East Greene is in Region 2 which includes teams from west central, north central and northwest Iowa. Each region has 16 teams playing for a spot in the eight-team field in the Class 1A State Tournament.
The Hawkettes travel to Burnside to take on Southeast Webster-Grand (5-16), a team EG lost to by six points in the first game of the season, 32-26. The winner tonight at Burnside faces the winner of a game in Jewell tonight between Madrid (2-19) and Northeast Hamilton (10-11) in a quarterfinal tilt on Tuesday, Feb. 14, at Burnside.
Rolling Hills Conference foes Glidden-Ralston (5-15) and Paton-Churdan (3-17) face each other for the third time tonight in Glidden. The winner advances to play the winner of tonight’s St. Mary’s (Storm Lake) and Newell-Fonda game at Newell on Feb. 14 in Newell. St. Mary’s (10-12) and Newell-Fonda (16-5) are both members of the Twin Lakes Conference. Newell-Fonda took the league crown with a 9-1 record, besting two solid 2A teams, Manson-Northwest Webster and Sioux Central (Sioux Rapids).
The Newell quarterfinal winner will meet the Burnside quarterfinal winner in a semifinal game on Friday, Feb. 17 in Manson. (If Manson-Northwest Webster plays that night in the Class 2A semifinal round, the game will be moved to Fort Dodge St. Edmond).
The semifinal winner from the Manson bracket will go up against the winner of a semifinal game in Le Mars on Monday, Feb. 20. Teams in the Le Mars bracket are Whiting (6-15), Charter Oak-Ute (10-11), Siouxland Christian (6-15), River Valley (15-7), Remsen St. Mary’s (7-13), Kingsley-Pierson (2-18), Akron-Westfield (5-15) and West Sioux of Hawarden (19-1), the No.5 team in the state.
The favorite in Region 2 is Newell-Fonda, ranked No. 7 in the state. Newell-Fonda (16-5) has been to three of the last four Class 1A state tournaments. Last year the Mustangs were sidelined by eventual champion Martensdale-St. Mary’s in the first round. Two years ago, Newell-Fonda fell to Exira in the semifinal round. Exira went on to win the state championship over Mt. Ayr. In 2008, Newell-Fonda advanced to the final, losing to Springville.
Last year Exira began sharing sports with Elk Horn-Kimballton, creating a program with recent experience at the state tournament level on the Exira side and deep tradition in girls basketball success on the Elk Horn-Kimballton side. Exira had been to state in 2008 but was highly ranked in 2009, but was sidelined the next year by Coon Rapids-Bayard in a regional quarterfinal game.
Exira/EHK has been ranked in the Top 15 in Class 1A all season but fell from 11th to 15th after losing to Adair-Casey, 51-44, on Jan. 17, and then dropped out of the rankings altogether after losing 59-48 to Guthrie Center (8-14) on Jan. 21. EEHK then closed out the season with five straight wins, capped by the 48-point thrashing of EG on Tuesday.
EEHK’s exit in the rankings allowed CRB (16-5) to move into the No. 15 last week, a position it held in the final poll released today by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. CRB faces CAM (9-12) in Coon Rapids tonight with the winner to face the winner of the Guthrie-EEHK battle in quarterfinal game Tuesday in Elk Horn.
The Elk Horn winner will meet the Adair quarterfinal winner in a semifinal battle on Feb. 17 in Atlantic. Orient-Macksburg (13-8) hosts last year’s champ, Martsendale-St. Mary’s (11-11), in Orient while Adair-Casey takes (19-2) takes on Earlham (8-13) in Adair in the Adair sub-bracket.
No. 2 Bedford is the favorite in the lower half of the Region 7 bracket. Bedord (20-1) will host Lenox (3-19) tonight. Bedford lost its first game to Nodaway Valley (Greenfield) on Tuesday in the regular season finale, giving Nodaway Valley a tie with Bedford for the Pride of Iowa Conference title. Nodaway Valley, a 2A team, is 19-2 but not ranked. They are in the same 2A region as No. 8 Panorama, which won the West Central Conference with a perfect 18-0 mark, and area teams Jefferson-Scranton, Ogden and Des Moines Christian.
The Bedord-Lenox winner will take on the winner of East Union (5-16) and Diagonal (3-17). Also in that side of Region 7 are Mormon Trail (6-14), Murray (15-6), Lamoni (6-14) and Mount Ayr (11-10).
This is a power-packed region with last year’s state champion, Martensdale-St. Mary’s, and both the 2010 champion and runner-up—EEHK and Mount Ayr—plus Murray, a perennial southern Iowa power, and state-ranked teams Bedford, Adair-Casey and Coon Rapids-Bayard. The final is Monday, Feb. 20 in Greenfield.
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