PCM girls get back on winning track

MONROE — The Prairie City-Monroe girls basketball team went to a full-court press late in the first quarter against Greene County on Tuesday night.

The efforts in the press forced plenty of turnovers and helped the Mustangs cruise to a 46-24 home victory during Heart of Iowa Conference play.

PCM led 14-8 after the first quarter but pulled away with a 16-3 advantage in the second. The Rams outscored the Mustangs in the third, but PCM’s defense held Greene County to four points in the final frame.

“We started to press late in the first quarter and that created a lot of turnovers,” PCM coach Jeff Lindsay said. “We got some easy buckets off the press and that helped us pull away.”

Kayla Jennings scored a game-high 20 points and had six steals in the win. Jayci Vos scored 10 points, dished out three assists and had three steals.

Kaylee Townsend scored six points, grabbed six rebounds, handed out three assists, collected three steals and blocked two shots. Katie Vande Wall grabbed 10 rebounds.

The Mustangs had 14 steals as a team.

“We finally started to get the tempo of the offense down tonight,” Lindsay said. “We also took a big step forward with our man-to-man defense. We really smothered them.”

The Mustangs improved to 7-5 overall and 6-3 in the HOIC.

Greene County dropped to 2-11 overall and 2-7 in league play.

BOYS

Greene County 76, PCM 54

The Mustang boys lost their second straight home game after Greene County made 12 3-pointers and Trey Tucker dropped in 25 points.

Luke Greiner had 18 points and Logan Gilman added 17 for PCM, which fell to 7-4 overall and 5-3 in league play.

The Rams hit three straight 3-pointers in the first quarter and grabbed a 19-12 lead eight minutes.

They led 38-23 at halftime and cruised from there.

Greene County improved to 4-8 overall and 4-5 in conference play.