March 28, 2024

Mustang girls advance after blowout victory over Albia

MONROE — The Prairie City-Monroe girls’ basketball team got off to a slow start Saturday night during the opening round of the Class 3A Region 8 tournament.

Whether it was due to nerves, the memories of losing at home in last year’s playoffs or playing late on a Saturday, no one really knows.

The good thing is none of that matters. Once the 3A No. 11 Mustangs got going, Albia didn’t stand a chance in a PCM 56-19 win over the Blue Demons.

PCM didn’t score in the first 3 minutes, 49 seconds, but that didn’t mean a thing once the clock showed all zeroes in the fourth quarter.

The Mustangs’ stifling defense held Albia to single digits in all four quarters, and the offense eventually caught fire as PCM advanced to the regional semifinals.

“It was a little bit of everything. It may have been the Saturday thing. We were just hurried and jittery,” PCM coach Jeff Lindsay said. “We talked about it a few times. Each time we talked about it, it got better.

“(Albia) is aggressive, and we knew that. We just tried to go over-aggressive with them. We needed to just slow down. Once we started playing with a little more calm, then it started to take off.”

Three Mustangs reached double-figures in the win.

Senior Kayla Jennings finished with a game-high 21 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals, freshman Regan Freland added 15 points, five steals and four rebounds and senior Katie Vande Wall chipped in 11 points, eight rebounds and five steals.

Jennings said after the game she felt like the slow start was attributed to nerves. The Mustangs don’t talk at all about last year’s semifinal loss to Chariton, but it’s still natural to feel nervous when the postseason rolls around.

“I think we had some butterflies. But once we got going, we were good to go,” Jennings said. “We aren’t motivated by last year’s loss. Most of us are seniors. That’s all the motivation we need.”

Jennings and Freland came into the game leading the team in points per game. That didn’t change Saturday, and the backcourt had 24 of the Mustangs’ 27 points at halftime.

A bucket by Jennings with 4:11 left in the first quarter got PCM on the board. Freland made it 4-2 and then a Jennings 3-pointer pushed the lead to 7-2. The Mustangs led 10-4 after the first quarter.

Points were hard to come by all night long for Albia (11-11). The Mustangs have hung their hats on defense all season, and that continued Saturday. PCM had 20 steals in the game, and a lot of those turnovers transitioned into easy buckets at the other end.

Vande Wall gave credit to Albia when talking about the slow start. The senior forward simply thought PCM’s opponent played a 2-3 zone better than they expected.

“They looked a little bit different than what we planned on,” said Vande Wall, who passed her sister Lindsey as the school’s all-time leading rebounder earlier this season.

“They did a much better job with their 2-3 zone. We just had to adjust to that and run the offense like we know how,” Vande Wall said.

That’s exactly what happened. PCM outscored Albia 17-4 in the second quarter and 20-7 in the third to pull away.

In the second, all 17 points were scored by either Freland or Jennings. Freland scored eight in the period. Her final bucket put the Mustangs up 27-8 at halftime. Jennings scored four points from the free-throw line, got a bucket inside the lane and then drilled another 3-pointer.

“We had good ball movement in the game. We did a good job of just taking open shots when they were there,” Jennings said. “And then the dump down to (Vande Wall) and Kaylee (Townsend) was there a lot, too.”

The only other adversity PCM faced the rest of the way involved foul issues. Freland picked up two early fouls in the first half, but that proved to be a non-factor.

Townsend and senior Bailey Brodersen rarely play on the floor together. In the second half, both had to sit next to each other on the bench because both was saddled with four fouls.

That forced Lindsay into a new-look lineup that featured Vande Wall and seniors Rachel Stafford and Lexi Timmins on the bottom line in the 2-3 zone. Timmins finished with six rebounds.

“It reinforces how I have tried to build this team. I want us to have a lot of versatile parts,” Lindsay said. “That’s still not a bad bottom line in the 2-3 zone. But that gave us five girls that can run up and down the floor. We didn’t have the post presence inside but we were faster. It’s just a different team with that lineup, but these girls just do whatever it takes to help the team.”

Vande Wall got her offense going during PCM’s 20-point third quarter. She was beneficiary of several open looks in the lane and she converted most of them. She put in six of her 11 points in the third and then scored the first three points of the fourth.

Her final bucket of the game put the Mustangs up 50-15 and kicked in the 35-point continuous clock.

“I just to help out the best I can. I just try to work to get the best shots I can,” Vande Wall said. “This season has been a lot of fun. I love this team.”

The Mustangs stay home for the regional semifinals at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Their opponent will be Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont (16-5). The Rockets defeated Centerville, 61-25, in their playoff opener.

“It’s nice to be able to play these first few games at home,” Vande Wall said. “We hated losing last year at home. We overlooked that game. We started slow tonight, but we never gave up. We won’t overlook anyone this year. We want it more. This is our senior season for most of us. We don’t want to lose on this court again.”

Albia 4-4-7-4 — 19

PCM 10-17-20-9 — 56

Albia (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP) — Isley 2-1-3-5, Curran 1-0-1-2, Rohrer 0-0-4-0, Van Polen 3-0-2-6, Colwell 0-0-1-0, Shephard 0-0-3-0, Ford 0-1-2-1, Leshen 0-0-1-0, Heaton 1-0-0-2, McCarty 0-1-2-1, Gectzing 0-2-0-2. TOTALS: 7-5-19-19.

PCM (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP) — Freland 6-3-5-15, Vande Wall 4-3-3-11, Stafford 1-0-1-2, Jennings 7/3-4-21, Townsend 1-2-5-4, Timmins 0-0-0-0, Uhlenhopp 0-0-0-0, Bussan 0-0-0-0, Waddell 0-1-0-1, Hjortshoj 0-0-0-0, Brodersen 1-0-3-2. TOTALS: 20/3-13-17-56.