A 60-55 win over Madrid on Thursday, Feb. 16, in quarterfinal district action at Rippey advanced East Greene into the semifinal round. EG takes on conference foe Ankeny Christian Academy in a 7 p.m. game tonight at Rippey. The Eagles (16-6) and the Hawks (11-10) split their games during the regular season with each winning on the other’s home court.
Against Madrid, EG jumped out to an early 7-4 lead but the Tigers tied it up 9-all midway through the first quarter. The Hawks moved in front by three on an Alex Gordon three-pointer, 14-11, and a Wyatt Beaman trey—just as the quarter ended—put EG ahead 20-15.
Madrid then cut the lead to 20-17, but Broc Timm came off the bench and hit a three-pointer to put the Hawks on top 23-17.
Late in the half, with the Hawks leading 28-23, Madrid’s C.J. Manthe was called for a foul while defending Tory Beger. The EG playmaker motioned to the referees that he had been hit in the mouth on what was a definitely a hard foul by the Madrid football and track standout. The official closest didn’t care for Beger’s feedback and called a technical foul on him.
Beger went to the line first for his foul shots and connected of the front-half of a 1-and-1. Manthe then got two foul shots but could connect on only one, cutting EG’s lead to 29-24. The half ended with the Hawks still in front, 33-29.
As the second half got underway, the Tigers tied the score at 33-all on a free throw and a three-pointer. The two teams played evenly the rest of the quarter. Madrid had switched to a man-to-man after the break which put the brakes on the Hawks’ outside attack while at the same time bottling up the middle, keeping EG center Reed Ostrander away from the basket.
The Hawks got the lead back on a lay-up at the buzzer to end the quarter with a 42-40 advantage.
Ostrander then started to find his touch on both ends of the court. He was fouled while driving to the basket and hit both free throws, putting the Hawks in front 48-43. The Hawks then got a stop and came down the court and scored again on a Wyatt Beaman jumper, stretching the lead to 50-43.
Loew had been having success driving against Ostrander, and he slipped through the lane again, pulling the Tigers to within five points, 50-45 with 5:22 left in the game.
Ostrander took aim from beyond the arc, however, and got the home town ignited as the Hawks stretched their lead to 53-45.
EG held the Tigers at bay the rest of the game. The final score is misleading as the Hawks were ahead 60-52 as the final seconds ticked away. Manthe threw up an off-balance three-pointer with 2.2 seconds that drew a foul from Gordon, sending Manthe to the line with three free shots. The Tigers had gone just 6-of-12 from the line all night, but Manthe connected on all three to make the final tally 60-55.
Ostrander scored 35 points to lead the Hawks with Beaman adding 14. The Hawks were 19 of 35 from the field for 54% and 7 of 17 for three-point shooting for 41%. EG went 15 of 22 for 68% at the free throw line with some key shots made down the stretch as Madrid was forced to foul to stop the clock.
Loew lead the Tigers with 22 points and 15 rebounds, helping Madrid to a 32-25 rebounding advantage, one of the few games this season—especially a win—where EG was outrebounded. Mark Nerhrin added 15 points and Manthe had 12.
Manthe’s final three free throws moved the team’s foul shooting to 9 of 15 (60%) but the Hawk defense gave the Tiger shooters fits all night. EG held Madrid to 38% on 22 of 58 field goals and just 14% (2 of 14) three-point shooting.
East Greene evened its season record at 10-10 with a 77-73 road win at Audubon on Friday, Feb. 10, in the final regular season game of the year.
EG and Audubon battled evenly at the start of the game with the Hawks ahead 14-12 at the end of the first quarter. “We came out slow against Audubon because we knew nothing about them,” said coach Mark Renslow. “Then we started playing some defense and hitting three’s and they couldn’t stop us.”
The Hawks had a 37-28 advantage at halftime and stretched the lead to 58-39 at the end of three quarters. Audubon mounted a furious rally and nearly pulled even with the Hawks. “We lost our composure with their press and let them get back in it,” said Renslow. “They just ran out of time, and we hit our free throws down the stretch.”
Offensively, the Hawks had their most balanced effort of the season with five players in double figures. Reed Ostrander led the charge with 19 points with Alex Gordon, back in the lineup after an absence of several games, scoring 18. Wyatt Beaman notched 16 and Tory Beger and Cody Hidlebaugh each added 10.
DISTRICT FINAL IN BOONE ON THURSDAY
The winner of the EG-Ankeny Christian game tonight will face the winner of the Guthrie Center side of the bracket in a district final on Thursday night in Boone. The Guthrie bracket game matches up two West Central Conference rivals—Guthrie Center and Coon Rapids-Bayard.
CRB (11-11) beat Woodward-Granger 55-47 at Woodward to advance while Guthrie Center (13-9), the top-seed in District 6, beat Audubon, 63-47. Audubon had moved into the quarterfinal round with a first-round win over Glidden-Ralston, 59-52.
Madrid had advanced after beating Paton-Churdan 66-37 in a match-up of lower-seeded teams on Monday, Feb. 13, with the winner to face East Greene, the No. 2 seed. Ankeny Christian, the No. 3 seed, took out Southeast Webster-Grand in Ankeny, 67-53, on Thursday in Ankeny.
CRB, WG, Madrid and Guthrie Center all are West Central Conference teams. Des Moines Christian (19-1 WC) beat Ogden (18-2 WC) for the league title outright with a 79-70 win over the Bulldogs in Ogden on Feb. 7. DMC and Ogden are both 2A teams. Each is playing for a district title to tonight, and they could face-off for the third time this year in a substate game at Johnston on Saturday. The winner will advance to the state championship.
DMC takes on Panorama, another West Central team, at Adel while Ogden meets St. Edmond (Fort Dodge) in Boone. Ogden handed DMC its only loss this season in Urbandale. Ogden’s only other loss was to Earlham.
Woodward-Granger had the best finish of the Class 1A teams in the West Central, tying Woodward Academy for third place, 13-7. Guthrie Center followed at 12-8 and CRB was right behind with a 10-10 mark.
Guthrie and CRB have solid tournament tradition. Guthrie advanced to state last year and finished as consolation champion. CRB was a state tourney qualifier in 2010. This makes for a power-packed group of semifinalists as Ankeny Christian was also a 2010 state qualifier. The Eagles finished third (14-4) in the Rolling Hills this season while EG was fifth (9-9).
All five of the upper division teams in the Rolling Hills are still in contention in the post-season and two are guaranteed to advance tonight as they take on another conference team. Along with ACA at EG, league foes Exira/Elk Horn-Kimballton and Adair-Casey square off tonight in Elk Horn. CAM (Anita), the league runner-up, hosts Corning. Winner of tonight’s games in Anita and Elk Horn meet for the district championship on Thursday in Clarinda. The Clarinda district winner meets the I-35 (Truro) district winner in a substate game at Southwestern Community College in Creston on Saturday.
ACA beat EG 73-55 in the first game between the two teams in Rippey in early December. When they met again in Ankeny in January, the Eagles were without Zach Cousins, who had poured in 32 points on 13-of-14 shooting from the field and went 6-of-9 from the line, along with 7 rebounds and 7 steals, in the game at Rippey.
The Hawks had the upper hand in the rematch, winning 60-53. Sources says Cousins, a junior, has left the team and school, transferring to Ankeny High School. He was the top shooter on the team with 13.7 points per game average and 66% field goal accuracy. His last game for ACA was a Dec. 20 win over Walnut. ACA was 5-1 through that game. Since then, the Eagles have gone 11-5.
The winner of the District 6 winner will move on to face the District 5 winner in a substate game on Saturday at Fort Dodge. District 5 features No. 2-ranked and defending state champion St. Mary’s (Storm Lake) and No. 5-ranked Harris-Lake Park. St. Mary’s (22-0) hosts Bishop Garrigan (Algona) tonight while Harris-Lake Park (21-0) takes on Newell-Fonda in Lake Park. Tonight’s winners will meet Thursday in Emmetsburg.
Rolling Hills Conference Boys Basketball
FINAL CONFERENCE STANDINGS
(Season records through Thurs., Feb. 16)
Exira/Elk Horn-Kimballton 17-1 20-1
CAM (Anita) 15-3 18-4
Ankeny Christian 14-4 16-6
Adair-Casey 11-7 13-8
East Greene 9-9 11-10
Orient-Macksburg 7-11 8-12
Iowa Christian 7-11 7-13
Glidden-Ralston 6-12 7-15
Walnut 4-14 8-15
Paton-Churdan 0-18 0-20
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