March 28, 2024

Strong second half propels Mustangs against CMB

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MONROE — Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s boys’ basketball team did all it could to stay with rival Prairie City-Monroe during Heart of Iowa Conference play on Tuesday night.

The Raiders slowed the pace at the offensive end and limited the Mustangs to one shot at the other end.

Those efforts helped CMB to a seven-point halftime advantage, but it’s hard to keep a team like PCM down for 32 minutes.

The Mustangs scored the first eight points in the third quarter to get back in the game and then a 16-4 run created some separation during a 54-43 home victory.

“We had some really good shots in the first half that we just couldn’t make,” PCM coach Fred Lorensen said. “We hate to let teams hang around like that because you can get beat in this league if you do that too much.

“We had a good effort in the second half and we finally made some shots.”

Logan Gilman, the HOIC’s leading scorer, was held to four points in the first half, but he buried three 3-pointers during the 16-4 spurt and finished with 17 points and eight rebounds in the game.

Sophomore Elijah Sperfslage canned three treys in the first half to keep the Mustangs within striking distance.

His fourth and final 3-pointer came during the decisive second-half run, and he finished with a career-high 12 points in the win.

“That was the difference,” CMB coach Scott Brummel said of PCM’s second-half run. “We didn’t rotate very well, and we didn’t find the shooters. And at least two of those 3-pointers came on second or third chances. We stopped boxing out in the second half.”

CMB (2-13 overall, 2-10 in the HOIC) scored the final four points of a back-and-forth first quarter to lead 10-7 after eight minutes. Brady Stover connected from long range to give the Raiders a 13-7 lead.

Sperfslage’s first triple of the night trimmed PCM’s deficit to one. He hit another 3-pointer after CMB got back-to-back buckets by Brad Ritter.

Stover and Sperfslage traded shots from long range to tie the game at 20-all, but CMB scored the final seven points of the half to grab a surprising lead at the break.

“We thought that working the ball until we had a great shot was the way to go,” Brummel said. “We thought we could ugly it up, and we did. We liked where we were at at halftime up seven.”

The first eight points of the second half went to the home team as PCM took a 28-27 lead. The two teams traded buckets after that until Sheldon Speers hit 1-of-2 at the line and Gilman cashed in from deep to give the Mustangs a 34-32 advantage at the end of the third quarter.

PCM (11-5, 8-3) made five 3-pointers in the final quarter. The first four makes came in the first three minutes of the quarter and it gave the Mustangs a 10-point lead.

“We finally got the pace picked up a little bit, which seemed to be good for us,” Lorensen said. “We switched to some man in the second half to try to speed them up a bit, but they were patient with that, too. We got them to play quicker when we applied some full-court pressure. We got them to turn it over some and that helped us create some separation.”

The victory keeps the Mustangs one game back of first-place Gilbert. The Tigers are 9-2 in HOIC play, while PCM and North Polk are tied at 8-3,

The Mustangs control their own destiny but will have to defeat three teams — Gilbert, North Polk and Greene County — on the road which defeated PCM at home earlier this season.

The Miustangs hit 10 3-pointers on the night. Greiner scored eight and grabbed eight boards. Jackson Thomas hit two fourth-quarter treys and finished with seven. Mark Bruxvoort pulled down six boards.

Brady Kemp scored a team-high 12 points, grabbed six rebounds and dished out three assists. Stover scored 11, while Hunter McWhirter had five assists and four rebounds.

We are getting closer. We still have a ways to go yet though,” Lorensen said.

PCM’s next game is at 7:30 p.m. Friday at North Polk. CMB hosts South Hamilton at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Baxter.

Collins-Maxwell/Baxter 10-17-5-11—43

Prairie City-Monroe 7-13-14-20—54

CMB (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP): McWhirter 0-0-2-0, Stover 4/3-0-0-11, Gunderson 2-2-4-6, Kemp 5/1-1-4-12, Ritter 3-0-1-6, Clapper 4-0-2-8. Totals: 18/4-3-15-43.

PCM (FG/3-pt-FT-F-TP): Sperfslage 4/4-0-3-12, Greiner 4-0-0-8, Bruxvoort 1-0-2-2, Speers 1-1-2-3, Brown 0-0-1-0, Gilman 7/3-0-2-17, J. Thomas 2/2-1-0-7, Clark 0-2-0-2, Van Ryswyk 1/1-0-1-3. Totals: 20/10-4-11-54.