March 28, 2024

No. 10 Hawks too much for PCM boys

MONROE — Prairie City-Monroe boys basketball coach Fred Lorensen expects to be in the mix for the Heart of Iowa Conference championship every season.

Even in the midst of a three-game losing streak, Lorensen still thought his Mustangs should have been able to compete with the HOIC’s top team Tuesday night.

Instead, Class 2A No. 10 South Hamilton used a big second quarter and cruised to a 79-61 road victory, spoiling PCM’s Senior Night.

Leading by six after one quarter, the Hawks outscored PCM 32-13 in the second quarter and the Mustangs never got closer than 18 after trailing 48-23 at halftime.

“We knew the games during this recent stretch were going to be tough,” Lorensen said. “The bad part is we just haven’t been competitive. That’s hard to take.”

South Hamilton’s Collin Hill, a Truman State recruit, is one of Class 2A’s best players. But Hill got plenty of help Tuesday.

Hill finished with 18 points, sophomore Conner Hill scored 17, junior Marco Balderas chipped in 13 and junior Logan Klemp added 12 in the win.

“We came out focused on both ends tonight, and I think it showed us what we’re capable of when we all do our jobs,” South Hamilton coach Nathan Hill said.

The Hawks stayed on top of the HOIC with the win. South Hamilton is now 15-2 overall and 11-2 in the league. PCM dropped its fourth straight game and is now 9-8 overall and 8-5 in conference games.

South Hamilton never trailed in the game. Collin Hill scored six of the Hawks’ first nine points, but PCM stayed close when junior Elijah Sperfslage’s layup made it 9-6.

Bruxvoort, the team’s lone senior, scored a bucket inside to make it 14-10 before Collin Hill’s jumper gave the Hawks a 16-10 lead after one quarter.

Back-to-back buckets by junior Jackson Thomas kept the deficit at four early in the second quarter.

After that, the Hawks went on a 19-2 run to effectively put the game away.

“We can play better than we have been,” Lorensen said. “We have run into some hot teams that are playing well and shooting it well, and that hasn’t helped, but some of that has to fall on us and what we are doing defensively and how we are guarding.

“We have had a quarter or a stretch in the game where we don’t score lately. You can’t do that against good teams. It’s frustrating. We can’t afford to have lapses like that.”

The 32-point second quarter included three treys by Conner Hill. Balderas also scored seven of his 13 points in the second quarter.

The Mustangs, who turned it over 23 times, managed to close the gap in the fourth, but Lorensen went to his bench with 6 minutes to play.

Trailing by 29, PCM’s reserves closed the gap to 18 before the final horn. Sophomore Nick Dredge scored seven points, while sophomore Brayton Van Dyke scored six and freshman Derek Brown added five. All of those points came in the final quarter.

Bruxvoort led the team with 11 points on his Senior Night. Sophomore Reed Worth added nine points, while Thomas put in eight points and grabbed four boards.

Sophomore Andrew Van Ryswyk scored seven points and grabbed seven points before fouling out in the third quarter. Junior Noah Lanphier pulled down five rebounds.

“We need to get through this. I told the team after the game not to get down. It’s always easy to work hard when things are going well, but can we do that when things aren’t doing well,” Lorensen said. “We’ll find that out in the next couple of days at practice and hopefully we can go to Nevada on Friday and get things turned around.”

The Mustangs play at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Nevada. The Cubs (12-6, 9-4) defeated PCM by 17 in the first meeting back on Dec. 20.

South Hamilton 16-32-20-11 — 79

PCM 10-13-18-20 — 61

South Hamilton (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP) — Balderas 4/2-3-3-13, Klemp 5-2-2-12, Peters 1-2-2-4, Collin Hill 9-0-0-18, Conner Hill 6/4-1-1-17, Berg 2/2-3-1-9, Coy 1/1-0-0-3, Ullestad 0-0-1-0, Balvanz 1-1-1-3, Wynkoop 0-0-1-0. TOTALS 29/9-12-12-79.

PCM (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP) — Sperfslage 2-0-1-4, Bruxvoort 4-3-3-11, Worth 2-5-1-9, Thomas 4-0-0-8, Van Ryswyk 3/1-0-5-7, Stafford 1-0-0-2, Boell 0-0-4-0, Van Wyk 1-0-1-2, Dredge 3/1-0-1-7, Brown 2/1-0-0-5, Van Dyke 3-0-1-6. TOTALS 25/3-8-17-61.