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MONROE — There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered for both the Prairie City-Monroe and South Hamilton boys’ basketball teams on Tuesday.
PCM was coming off a 17-5 season in which four of the top five scorers, rebounders and assist leaders graduated. South Hamilton went 21-4 last year, advanced to the state tournament but graduated seven of its top eight scorers, rebounders and assist leaders.
Mustang head coach Fred Lorensen knew what he had in sophomore Logan Gilman, but he got a chance to check out the rest of his inexperienced roster for the first time Tuesday in the season opener and while the results were mixed, the overall performance created a 61-52 victory in Heart of Iowa Athletic Conference play.
Gilman finished with a game-high 18 points, but the Mustangs also got 13 from Trey Lindsay, nine from Ricky Reeve and Luke Pendroy and eight from Tyler Townsend.
The game was tied at halftime and each team scored 16 points in the final quarter, but PCM surged ahead for good in the third as pressure defense led to easy buckets in transition and an 18-9 advantage in the quarter.
That nine-point margin was the difference in the final score of a game that featured the first- and second-place finishers in the HOIAC last year.
“This year’s team has a lot of speed and they can attack the basket,” said Lorensen. “We were able to get some easy buckets in the third and that ended up being the difference in the game.”
Gilman scored 11 of his 18 points in the first quarter, but the Hawks (0-1, 0-1) adjusted their defense and forced someone else to beat them.
The Mustangs led 17-12 after one but it was 27-all at halftime despite a pair of triples from Lindsay in the second quarter.
South Hamilton scored five of the first seven points of the third, but then PCM used an 8-0 run to go up 37-32.
Two buckets inside the paint from Pendroy and a three-point play from Reeve spearheaded the spurt and then three straight points from Lindsay and a hoop inside from Townsend capped a 13-2 run and Townsend’s three-point play with 7 seconds to go in the quarter gave the Mustangs an insurmountable nine-point advantage.
Five of Townsend’s eight points came in the third and then he hit three of his four free throw attempts in the fourth to give PCM a boost off the bench.
“He did a nice job for us,” Lorensen said. “We needed that at the time of the game, too.”
Even though the Hawks never got closer than five in the final frame, Lorensen was not happy with how his team closed out the victory. PCM forced its visitors into 12 second-half turnovers, but the Mustangs also committed 15 in the game and most of them came in the fourth.
Lindsay and Greiner both hit buckets and got fouled after South Hamilton closed to within six and five late in the fourth. Reeve finished off the win with a layup in the final seconds.
“You would think they could just go and do that, but they’ll be a learning curve with this group,” said Lorensen of the up-and-down fourth quarter. “Most of these guys haven’t played varsity basketball before so it’ll be a process.”
Lindsay added six steals, five assists and three rebounds to his 13 points, while Gilman pulled down a team-high eight boards. Pendroy chipped in six boards and three assists, while Greiner had five rebounds. PCM, which travels to Roland-Story on Friday, won the battle on the boards, 28-22.
“We are still trying to figure out our depth,” Lorensen said. “There were some guys who did not play tonight who may factor into the rotation at some point. We have lots of room for improvement.”
South Hamilton’s best player from last year’s state tournament team was sophomore Collin Hill, but he missed the game and will miss several weeks with a foot injury suffered during football season.
Freshman Marco Balderas scored a team-high 14 points in his varsity debut off the bench. Senior Andy Cook added 13 but no other South Hamilton player scored more than six.
South Hamilton 12-15-9-16—52
PCM 17-10-18-16—61
South Hamilton (FG-3pt-FT-F-TP) — Balderas 5-2-2-2-14, Cook 6-0-1-3-13, Quam 2-1-0-1-5, Klemp 1-0-3-3-5, Olsen 1-1-0-3-3, Maile 3-0-0-0-6, Ratzke 2-0-2-1-6, Woodall 0-0-0-1-0. Totals 20-4-8-13-52.
PCM (FG-3pt-FT-F-TP) — Greiner 2-0-0-3-4, Reeve 4-0-1-2-9, Lindsay 5-2-1-3-13, Townsend 2-0-4-0-8, Gilman 6-3-3-2-18, Pendroy 4-0-1-3-9, DeReus 0-0-0-1-0. Totals 23-5-10-13-61.
Contact Troy Hyde at
641-792-3121 ext. 6536 or thyde@newtondailynews.com