Mustang girls overwhelm Knoxville

MONROE — Prairie City-Monroe girls basketball coach Jeff Lindsay said his team figured out what its foundation as a program would be pretty early in last year’s season.

“The foundation of what we do is defense,” Lindsay said. “For the majority of the teams we play, if we can score 50 or more, I like our chances a lot.”

The Mustangs didn’t quite get to 50 in their season opener against Knoxville on Saturday. It hardly mattered.

Class 3A No. 15 PCM used a 15-0 run to take control of the Panthers, and the Mustang defense did the rest, suffocating Knoxville during a 49-19 home rout.

“We started out slow tonight. There was some first game jitters,” Lindsay said. “Once we got flowing and going, everything started to fall in place.

“I think we’ll be in better shape moving forward.”

PCM led 23-11 at halftime and then outscored Knoxville (0-1) 17-2 in the third quarter.

Senior Kayla Jennings scored the team’s first eight points and finished with a game-high 16. She also had seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Jennings scored in several different ways in the first quarter. Her first eight points gave PCM an 8-6 lead before senior Kaylee Townsend’s three-point play and senior Bailey Brodersen’s two free throws put the Mustangs up 13-6.

That started a 15-0 run that seeped into the second quarter. Jennings scored the first four of that frame before a drive by senior Lexi Timmins put the Mustangs up 19-6.

Sophomore Camryn Wignall buried a 3-pointer just before halftime. That made it 23-11.

Freshman Regan Freland scored all eight of her points in the second half. She drilled a trey at the third-quarter buzzer and then hit another triple in the fourth quarter when the game was no longer in doubt.

“We are better perimeter shooters this year,” Lindsay said. “We have more shooters, too. Our post girls can step out and shoot, too. The girls understand what their roles are.”

Senior Katie Vande Wall also scored all seven of her points in the final two quarters. Vande Wall, who scored back-to-back buckets to put PCM up 34-13 in the third quarter, also had eight rebounds and three steals.

Timmins put in seven points, grabbed five boards and dished out three assists, and Brodersen pulled down eight rebounds and finished with three steals.

“We wanted to be better with turnovers, rebounds and free-throw shooting,” Lindsay said. “We only had 12 turnovers, which I will take every night. The free throws were better, and we did very well on the boards.”

The Mustangs got some unfortunate news before Saturday’s season opener. Senior Jayci Vos was told she would need three to six months to be “basketball ready.” That likely means Vos will be out the entire season.

The Mustangs are back in action at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday when they host Greene County in a Heart of Iowa Conference game.