Last week, on Friday, Feb. 2, the boys traveled to Preston to play against Easton Valley. The boys won 74 to 41.
“After the long bus ride of Friday, I was interested to see how our guys would come out and play,” stated Coach Conner. “Lance had a huge first half for us and really got us going. He scored 22 in the first half and did a lot of really good things for us. We dictated the pace of the game really well and capitalized on some of their turnovers. Brady Wall hit 6 of his 8 3-pointers on the night in the second half and his shooting really allowed us to pull away. I was pretty happy with how we played on defense the whole night, playing multiple different styles. Our goal is to go 3-0 in our last 3 games heading into the postseason, so we accomplished step 1. Now we turn our attention to East Buchanan and look to complete step 2 on Monday night.”
Scorers included Brady Wall and Lance McShane with 28 points each, Kody Hoeger with nine points, Zachary Leytem with three points, and Toby Grimm, Tate Intorf, and Dylan Knipper with two points each. There were a total of 22 assists. Grimm had ten, McShane had six, Holtz had three, Knipper had two, and Wall had one. For rebounds, McShane had ten, Knipper had six, Grimm and Wall had five each, Kody Hoeger had four, Intorf had three, and Holtz had one for a total of 34.
Monday, the boys traveled to East Buchanan to play, where they won 60 to 48.
“I was happy with how our guys came out in the first half and played as a team,” Coach Conner noted. “I thought we did some really good things and really only allowed one of their players to score most of the first half. We went into halftime up 16 points. From there, I thought we coasted a bit in the 2nd half. We did some things that were out of character for us and allowed EB to gain some confidence and hang around. I never felt as if our lead was in jeopardy, but I was hoping our guys would play a much more disciplined second half, and we talked about that after the game. I thought our seniors really did a great job of leading us in this game. Lance got us off to a hot start. EB did a good job of shutting Lance down in the 2nd half, which allowed Kody to get a little less attention and he took advantage of it. Toby was 2 points shy of a triple double, which is very impressive. Even though we didn’t play as well as I would have liked in the 2nd half, we found a way to get it done on the road and we took a lot of stuff away from the game that we can do better.
Scorers of the night were Kody Hoeger with 24 points, McShane with 12 points, Grimm with eight points, Holtz with seven points, Knipper with five points, and Wall with four points. There were a total of 16 assists. Grimm had ten, Wall had four, and Holtz and McShane had one each. For rebounds, Hoeger had 13, Grimm had 12, McShane had nine, Knipper with three, and Holtz had one, for a total of 38.
Tuesday, MV matched up against Central City and won 52-39. McShane finished the night with 18 points, Wall with 15 and Hoeger with 11. McShane had 12 rebounds, two blocks and two steals. Kody Hoeger had seven rebounds and Toby Grimm had five rebounds and a steal. Holtz led in assists with four. Knipper and McShane each had three assists.
Coach Conner commented, “I was interested to see how our guys would respond after the EB game. I was much happier with our effort for four quarters in this game. Central City is a team that has a bit of a deceiving record. They have had some key players injured throughout the season and have all of their guys back at the right time. I thought we got some good quality looks in the first quarter that just didn’t fall. We did a good job of not panicking and trusting the looks that we got, and they fell for us in the 2nd quarter to go into halftime with a lead. Central City did just enough to hang around and not allow us to pull away. I was most proud of our guys for how they handled themselves when things got chippy last in the game when CC knew we had it sealed. We ended the season accomplishing our goal of going 3-0 after the NL loss and have carried some positive momentum into the postseason.
The boys begin post-season play Monday as they host East Buchanan.