COLFAX — Josh Zeiser has made a lot of gre

COLFAX — Josh Zeiser has made a lot of great plays for the Collins-Maxwell-Baxter boys basketball team in his four years, but one thing he had never done before Friday night was dunk in a game.

So when he had a breakaway in the fourth quarter against Colfax-Mingo, he was understandably a little nervous when he made the decision to go for it.

“I was like, ‘Don’t hit the rim, man.’ That was my biggest fear going up there,” the senior said. “But once I was hanging on it, it was awesome. It was a huge adrenaline rush.”

Zeiser’s two-handed slam was one of two dunks in the fourth quarter of the Raiders’ 53-36 win over the Tigerhawks, in which they outscored Colfax-Mingo 22-9 in the final eight minutes.

Zeiser scored eight of his 11 points in the fourth, while freshman Bryce Kemp also had a thunderous dunk to spur the Raiders to turn a 3-point game early in the fourth into a 17-point win.

It snapped an eight-game losing streak for CMB (3-16, 3-15 Heart of Iowa Conference), while Colfax-Mingo is still winless at 0-18, 0-11).

“Those two plays were amazing,” said Raiders’ junior Zach Hartgers, who had 11 points. “Josh and Bryce got things going for us, and I felt confident taking my shots. We knew Colfax was hungry, but so were we and we wanted that third win.”

Colfax-Mingo led 6-5 after a defensive struggle of a first quarter, and the teams went basket-for-basket in the second. Tigerhawks’ senior Josh Walker banked in jumper at the buzzer to tie the game at 19 apiece after two quarters.

But Kemp led an 8-0 CMB run to open the third, scoring the first six points and the Raiders seized control at 27-19. But Colfax-Mingo battled back, closing to within 33-30 after hitting a 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter.

Moments later, Kemp took away the Tigerhawks’ momentum with the game’s biggest play. He made the first of two free throw attempts, missed the second, grabbed the rebound and went right back up for a two-handed dunk that sent the CMB faithful into a frenzy and seemed to energize the Raiders. Colfax-Mingo scored the next basket to cut the deficit back to four, but then CMB went on a 13-0 run to pull away for the win.