March 28, 2024

First win continues to elude Tigerhawks

COLFAX — For about 28 minutes, the Colfax-Mingo boys’ basketball team played well enough to end its long losing streak.

Unfortunately, high school games are 32 minutes long and because of poor execution, lack of composure and a few other things that were out of their control, the Tigerhawks stayed winless on the season.

North Polk (4-5, 3-4) outscored the Tigerhawks (0-7, 0-7) 25-9 in the final quarter and won 61-47. The game was tied at 40-all with 5 minutes to play and it was a two-point game with 3 to go.

“I think we lost our composure offensively in the fourth quarter,” Colfax-Mingo coach John Borts said. “We didn’t pass the ball as efficiently as we needed to and our shot selection wasn’t as good as it needed to be. We got hurried in the last half of the fourth quarter and the game kind of got away from us a little bit. It doesn’t reflect at all the competitiveness of the game.”

Junior Jared Myers poured in a career-high 23 points and added four rebounds and two steals in the loss. Junior Colin Lourens also added 10 points and 12 boards for Colfax-Mingo, which led 24-23 at halftime and 38-36 after three quarters.

“The effort is what I ask of them and it was tremendous effort on both ends of the floor,” Borts said. “I think you can see that we have improved a ton from the beginning of the year until now.

“I recognize that we have lots of things that we can continue to work on, but I am proud of the kids. They keep the desire to get better and they keep working. We just couldn’t get the job finished tonight.”

The Tigerhawks rallied from a four-point second-quarter deficit to take a one-point lead at halftime. A Myers 3-pointer and a Lourens bucket inside gave Colfax-Mingo a 29-23 just one minute into the third quarter.

Myers drilled another triple to give the hosts their biggest lead of the game at 32-25, but three straight buckets by Hunter Dark closed the gap to 32-31. Dark added another layup later in the period and Brett Haun, the team’s leading scorer at more than 16 points per game, buried a trey to tie the score.

Colfax-Mingo got a pair of free throws from Michael Deal with 0.6 seconds left in the quarter and that gave the Tigerhawks a halftime advantage.

Myers continued to have the hot hand in the fourth. He began the frame with a hoop inside and a Jacob Lietz jumper kept the Tigerhawks in front by two a little bit later.

But North Polk began its rally after that. Anthony Capaldo hit a 3-pointer and Haun got the hoop and the harm — he missed the free throw — to put the Comets up 45-42 and the visitors never trailed again.

Capaldo hit 9-of-10 free throws in the final 2 minutes to help the Comets pull away.

“We are still missing too many shots within four feet away from the hoop,” Borts said. “If we make half of those, we probably lead by 10 in the fourth.”

Capaldo finished with 12 in the game, while Dark scored 20 and Haun put in 19.

There were 40 fouls called in the game and 25 of them went against the host Tigerhawks. Myers was called for a personal foul and two technicals on the same play with 33 seconds to go in the contest. He was ejected from the game and will miss Colfax-Mingo’s next contest against Nevada on Tuesday night.

“There were a number of situations that happened during the fourth quarter that I probably don’t agree with the outcome of, but we don’t have any control over that,” Borts said. “If we execute a little better in the fourth quarter, then maybe some of the things we can’t control don’t matter as much.”

Jarod Nichols finished with seven rebounds and Lietz added six boards and four assists. The Tigerhawks turned it over 17 times.The Tigerhawks were just 9-of-19 from the free throw line, while North Polk was 19-for-27.

Colfax-Mingo next travels to Nevada on Tuesday. The boys’ varsity tip-off is slated for 7:30 p.m.

North Polk 14-9-13-25—61

Colfax-Mingo 12-12-14-9—47

North Polk (FG-3pt): Dark 8-0-4-3-20, Haun 7-1-4-1-19, Capaldo 1-1-9-5-12, Karpinske 2-0-0-4-4, Brauer 1-0-1-3-3, Claussen 1-0-1-1-3, Peterson 0-0-0-3-0, Determann 0-0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 17-4-19-23-61.

Colfax-Mingo (FG-3pt): Myers 7-4-5-5-23, Summy 1-0-0-2-2, Lietz 2-0-0-5-4, Buehrer 0-0-2-4-2, Borts 0-0-0-0-0, Lourens 5-0-0-5-10, Nichols 2-0-0-2-4, Deal 0-0-2-2-2. TOTALS: 17-4-9-25-47.

Contact Troy Hyde at
641-792-3121 ext. 6536
or thyde@newtondailynews.com