March 19, 2024

Positives taken from Tigerhawks’ season-opening loss

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COLFAX — Colfax-Mingo’s girls’ basketball team lost all 22 games it played last year. The Tigerhawks averaged around 22 points per game.

Monday’s season-opening 42-point performance was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, one bad quarter plagued the Tigerhawks in a 56-42 loss to Martensdale-St. Marys.

Sophomore Ries Wilson, who did not play last year as a freshman, led the Tigerhawks with 10 points, six rebounds and two blocks. Freshman Payton Rhone collected nine points in her first varsity games.

Those two additions, and a few others, to the roster coupled with plenty of returners should give the Tigerhawks (0-1) a more competitive team. C-M coach Michelle Grant wants her squad to be more aggressive on both ends of the court.

“Right now, we’re not used to having this many players,” Grant said. “Last year, we needed someone to shoot the ball and score. This year, we have plenty of scorers, but we are fighting each other for those points. It doesn’t matter who scores. We are not used to being able to play like that. We aren’t used to being able to work the ball around and see that a shot they take may not be the best shot.”

Junior Dakota Hostetter scored six points and led the Tigerhawks with 11 rebounds, five steals, three assists and three blocks in the loss.

Sophomore McKeely Tjaden added four points and seven boards before fouling out. Senior Jessica Albright also fouled out after scoring four points and pulling down five rebounds. Junior Alivia Haley scored six points and delivered four assists.

The game was tied at 6 after one quarter. Both teams scored 10 in the second quarter to make it 16-all at halftime.

The Blue Devils, who finished 18-8 last season, outscored the Tigerhawks 22-7 in the third and kept their hosts at a distance the rest of the way.

“We tried to make some adjustments at halftime, but they are not good enough to understand completely what we want them to do,” Grant said. “They got confused on where they needed to be. That’s something we can work on over the break though.

“It just comes down to us needing to be more aggressive at both ends.”

Colfax-Mingo scored 19 points in the fourth quarter. The Blue Devils (1-0) led by as many as 21. The Tigerhawks closed the gap with a 7-0 run that included a 3-pointer and jumper by Rhone and a free throw by Haley and Hostetter.

The Blue Devils went back up 20 moments later, but Haley and Wilson finished the game with back-to-back threes to make it a 14-point margin.

The good news for the Tigerhawks is they have video to learn from. They’ll have more than a week to fix some of the issues which popped up during their season opener.

“I like this early game,” Grant said. “We have the break to fix some things and show them on video what we need to do. We’ll learn a lot from this game and be ready to go for conference play.”

Ashley Kraber was the Devils’ third-leading scorer last year, but is the No. 1 option this year. She tallied nine points in the Devils’ big third quarter and finished with 23 in the game to lead the visitors. Kaci Sherwood also scored 11 in the win.

The Tigerhawks do not play again until Dec. 1 when they host North Mahaska in their first South Iowa Cedar League game. The girls varsity game precedes the boys’ game at 6 p.m.

Martensdale St. Marys  6-10-22-18—56

Colfax-Mingo 6-10-7-19—42

Martensdale-St. Marys (FG/3-pt-FT-TP): Kraber 8-7-23, Trom 3-2-8, Sherwood 4-3-11, Furness 0/1-5-8, Gibson 1-1-3, Verwers 0-3-3. TOTALS: 16/1-21-56.

Colfax-Mingo (FG/3-pt-FT-TP): Wilson 4-2-10, Rhone 4-1-9, Hostetter 2-2-6, Haley 2/1-1-6, Albright 1-2-4, Tjaden 1-1-4, Nichol 1-1-3. TOTALS: 13/4-8-42.