Tigerhawk girls can’t overcome second slow start against BGM

COLFAX — Back on Dec. 9, the Colfax-Mingo girls basketball team put itself in a big hole against BGM. The Tigerhawks trailed by 17 in the third quarter before rallying for a win behind a big fourth quarter.

Friday, Colfax-Mingo was in another big deficit against the Lady Bears. This time, the Tigerhawks couldn’t rally.

A 21-0 run in the first half gave all the momentum to visiting BGM. The Tigerhawks rallied in the second half but only got as close as four in the fourth quarter before the Lady Bears closed the deal during a 52-46 win in South Iowa Cedar League.

“This game was exactly like the game we played them over there, except we came back and won,” Colfax-Mingo coach Larry Roberts said. “We have come back enough to know that we can do it. I have tried everything I can to get them to play better at the start of the game. Unfortunately, this looks like a lot of our first halves. They look like crud.”

Junior Ries Wilson hit her first two shots of the game and brought the Tigerhawks to a 4-all tie early in the first quarter. That’s when BGM scored 21 straight points and essentially won the game.

Sophomore Mackensie Brown ended the run with a layup in the second quarter. Senior Dakota Hostetter made it two straight buckets on the next possession, and sophomore Payton Rhone buried a 3-pointer later. Still, the Tigerhawks trailed 33-15 at halftime.

“The score is 4-all, and suddenly it’s 25-4. If you don’t play defense, it hurts the offense, too,” Roberts said. “It’s not like they were doing anything special.”

Rhone continued her hot hand in the second half. She hit five 3-pointers in the game and scored a team-high 15 points. Two of those treys went down in the third quarter as Colfax-Mingo (4-14 overall, 4-11 in the SICL) began its rally.

Her second triple of the quarter was followed up by back-to-back buckets by junior McKeely Tjaden, and the Lady Bears’ (5-13, 3-11) lead was cut to 11.

BGM scored seven straight to go back up 18 early in the fourth quarter. That’s when the Tigerhawks used a 12-2 run to close within eight points. During that stretch, sophomore Delaney Underwood scored her only four points of the game and Rhone buried another 3-pointer.

Senior Amy Russell got the Tigerhawks within six points after she made a pair of free throws with 40 seconds to play. Rhone’s final 3-pointer of the game made it 50-46 with 26.2 on the clock.

That was as close as the home team got as BGM put the game away with a pair of free throws.

“At the stage we are at, we try to take as many positives that we can,” Roberts said. “You have to maintain that certain level that you have to have to win, and we are not consistent enough on that level.”

In order for Colfax-Mingo to take that next step and compete on a more consistent basis, Roberts is going to have to a better effort from his team at the start of the game. He has tried several different things to try to fix that problem, but nothing seems to work.

“We have tried different pre-game stuff. Nothing works,” Roberts said. “I can’t think of one time where we have came out and got after it right from the start. Maybe they appreciate a challenge.

“It’s frustrating. We are making improvements, but it’s a little forward and little backward.”

Colfax-Mingo outscored the Lady Bears 17-9 in the fourth quarter, but the early deficit was too much to overcome.

Rhone was 5-of-13 from long range. Wilson scored eight points and grabbed five rebounds, while Hostetter put in six points and pulled down eight rebounds. Russell scored all four of her points from the free-throw line, but she also grabbed five rebounds, dished out four assists and had three steals.

The Tigerhawks play Class 1A No. 10 Lynnville-Sully at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Sully.

BGM 16-17-10-9 — 52

Colfax-Mingo 4-11-14-17 — 46

BGM (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP) — Hawkins 0-0-2-0, Baldwin 1/1-0-0-3, Van Ersvelde 1-0-0-2, Hochstetler 3-1-0-7, Kriegel 6-0-4-12, Beck 5/1-4-3-15, Worthington 2-3-1-7, Gritsch 3-0-4-6. TOTALS 24/1-8-14-52.

Colfax-Mingo (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP)— Underwood 2-0-1-4, Rhone 5/5-0-0-15, Russell 0-4-5-4, Brown 1/1-2-2-5, Atwood 0-0-2-0, Tjaden 2-0-2-4, Wilson 4-0-2-8, Hostetter 2-2-1-6. TOTALS 17/6-6-15-46.