Hawks, Tigerhawks notch 1A district wins

SULLY — Fifth-ranked Lynnville-Sully’s boys hosted a Class 1A District 11 quarterfinal doubleheader Thursday featuring four South Iowa Cedar League teams. The two Jasper County squads emerged with victories.

Colfax-Mingo’s Tigerhawks advanced to the district semifinals with a 58-47 win over BGM in the opening game. Lynnville-Sully’s Hawks took care of business in the second contest with a commanding 71-30 victory over Sigourney.

The Tigerhawks, who notched their 10th win of the season Thursday, face the Hawks for a third time this season with advancement in the 1A playoffs on the line Tuesday. Lynnville-Sully (21-1) and Colfax-Mingo (10-12) play at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Montezuma.

It will be an all-SICL semifinal round for the 1A District 11. Montezuma (17-5) beat Tri-County 68-43 and North Mahaska (13-9) defeated Twin Cedars, 65-53, on Thursday in quarterfinal action. Those two teams play at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Montezuma.

The Class 1A District 11 championship game is at 7 p.m. Feb. 23 at Newton High School in Newton.

There’s no secret about Colfax-Mingo’s offense. The Tigerhawks want to feed the ball inside to junior post player Jarod Nichols. When teams focus trying to stop Nichols in the paint, the ball goes outside and the Tigerhawks have several players who can hit from long range.

That’s how it started Thursday night for the Tigerhawks. Nichols, who had a double-double with a game-high 19 points and 12 rebounds, scored the first two baskets for Colfax-Mingo. Freshman Brady Berkey and junior Jonathan Jacobs drained back-to-back threes.

Colfax-Mingo had a 10-2 lead over the BGM Bears. It never trailed in the game and it fended off several runs by the Bears to win and advance in the playoffs.

“We knew we had to stay focused against them. We had played them twice already this season,” Nichols said. “Our toughness mentally was better by all our teammates. One of our mottos this year is toughness wins games, and we proved that tonight. When the margin was six points, we pushed it to 12 and that was huge for us.”

The Tigerhawks led 12-6 at the end of the first quarter. BGM’s Dylan Schafbuch opened the second period with a 3-pointer, which was answered by a trey from Colfax-Mingo’s junior Misha Seebeck.

Each time the Bears made a run at the Tigerhawks and answer was found. It was 21-17 with two minutes before halftime. Berky’s free throw started a 5-2 surge by Colfax-Mingo which included a trey by sophomore Holister Koening and a free throw from junior Reegan Van Dyke.

Colfax-Mingo was in charge of a 26-19 halftime lead.

“We wanted to establish the tempo and keep it strong from the get-go,” Tigerhawk head coach Nick Noring said. “It was all about execution of our offensive plays to put BGM on their heels. We did that and went to work keeping them on their heels with solid defensive play.”

Noring said he stresses to his team about being mentally and physically tough. He said they talked at halftime and during timeouts about being prepared when the runs come at them.

“You have to weather the storm when you don’t get the opportunities offensively and a team is making a run. We did that again. We got stops. When the opportunities came back to us, we attacked and finished at the basket.”

The Bears cut the margin to five, 32-27 on a trey by Kyle Doty with 3:13 left in the third quarter. Answer — Berkey for a 3-pointer. BGM’s Ulises Felix cut it back to five on a 3-pointer. Answer — Nichols for a basket in the lane.

Colfax-Mingo owned a six-point lead, 37-31, going into the fourth quarter. The Tigerhawks had back-to-back baskets from Nichols and Van Dyke inside twice to take a 45-36 lead.

The Bears kept coming. A 3-point play by BGM’s Felix made it 50-45 with 2:09 remaining in the game. Colfax-Mingo stretched out its lead again from the free-throw line, cashing in on 7-of-11 foul shots in the final minute of play.

For the game, the Tigerhawks were 15-of-21 at the line and the Bears went 5-of-11. Colfax-Mingo shot 51 percent, 19-of 37, from the field.

The Tigerhawks had four players score nine points apiece — Berkey, Seebeck, VanDyke and Jacobs. VanDyke corralled 10 rebounds and dished out four assists. Jacobs had three of the team’s 12 assists.

Jayce Knight led the Bears with nine points. Doty and Eric Weiss each had eight points.

The only thing slowing down Lynnville-Sully’s offense Thursday night was a running clock in the fourth quarter. Sigourney’s Savages had no way of curtailing the Hawks, who led 37-18 at halftime and owned a 64-28 advantage after three quarters.

“Defense produces offense for us,” Lynnville-Sully senior Tyler Van Zante said. He had three of the Hawks’ 13 steals in the game. “Our defense was key again tonight. We pressured them, which usually creates turnovers and gives us layups.”

Taking the tip-off and scoring a layup was Van Zante then a Sigourney turnover against the Hawks’ full-court pressure resulted in a layup by junior Jesse Van Wyk. The Hawks soared to a 16-4 lead as juniors Brevin Hansen and Tanner Foster knocked down 3-pointers, Van Wyk had a basket and sophomore Rylan James had two buckets inside the paint.

The Savages hung around a for a little while, down 18-7 after the first quarter. It was 20-10 at the 7:19 mark of the second period.

Lynnville-Sully had another burst — 11-2 — using an inside-outside formula on the offensive end and their defense. The Hawks outscored the Savages 19-11 to gain their 18-point halftime lead.

“We played well in spurts,” Lynnville-Sully head coach Nick Harthoorn said. “We did some nice things on both ends of the floor, but we also have a few things we need shore up.”

After the break, the Hawks continued attacking the basket led by James working inside for seven of their first nine points of the third quarter. James finished with 14 points in the game as one of three Hawk players scoring in double figures.

Leading the way for Lynnville-Sully was Van Wyk with 17 points. Hansen added 12 points and handed out nine of the team’s 19 assists. Van Zante had four assists and seven rebounds. Foster had three assists and eight rebounds.

Foster made four steals and one of those came at the 6:25 mark of the third quarter for a layup. The Hawks powered past the Savages on a 30-10 run in the third quarter.

Defensively, the Hawks held Sigourney scoreless for nine of the final 11 minutes of the game. The Savages had a 3-pointer by Dustin Haines with 2:56 left in the third quarter and didn’t score again until there was 1:51 remaining in the game.

The Hawks shot 50 percent, 29-of-58, from the field and limited the Savages to 24 percent, 12-of-50. They went 9-of-15 at the free-throw line and the Savages were 2-of-5. Lynnville-Sully had a 37-20 rebounding edge.

“I thought we shared the basketball and got good looks offensively. We were able to hurt them on the boards. Hopefully, we will continue to attack the glass on both ends,” Harthoorn said.

In Tuesday’s semifinal game, the Tigerhawks are looking for the third time is a charm against the Hawks. The Hawks are after a second straight district championship.

“We’ve played them twice and we know they’ll give us a tough run,” Lynnville-Sully’s Van Zante said of the Tigerhawks. “It will be a fun game.”

“Lynnville-Sully is a phenomenal team and is the conference champion for a reason,” Noring said. “We’re open for the challenge. This game is on a neutral court which will help out in our favor. One team, one family, one mission is our opportunity to get this.”

Noring pointed out the Tigerhawks were short-handed both times the team met in conference play this season, including having Nichols out ill for one of the games. He said the young Colfax-Mingo team looks to Nichols for leadership and the junior provides it.

BGM 6-13-12-16—47

Colfax-Mingo 12-14-11-21—58

Colfax-Mingo (FG/3-pt): Berkey 1/2-1-2-9, Seebeck 0/1-6-0-9, VanDyke 4-1-2-9, Jacobs 1/1-4-1-9, Koening 0/1-0-2-3, Nichols 8-3-2-19. TOTALS: 14/5-15-9-58.

BGM (FG/3-pt); Hall 1-1-1-3, Schafbuch 0/2-0-3-6, Knight 4-1-1-9, Doty 1/2-0-5-8, Felix 1/1-2-0-7, Robertson 1-0-0-2, Weiss 2/1-1-5-8, Beck 1-0-2-2, Irlbeck 1-0-1-2. TOTALS: 12/6-5-18-47.

Sigourney 7-11-10-2—30

Lynnville-Sully 18-19-30-5—72

Lynnville-Sully (FG/3-pt): Hansen 3/2-0-2-12, Van Wyk 7/1-0-1-17, Van Zante 2-0-0-4, Vander Linden 2-0-1-4, Foster 1/2-1-0-9, Hofer 2-1-3-5, James 6-2-2-14, McCoy 1-4-2-6, Lukehart 0-1-1-1. TOTALS: 24/5-9-12-72.

Sigourney (FG/3-pt); Haines 1/2-1-0-9, W. Magill 4/1-0-1-11, Bell 0-0-1-0, Powers 0-1-3-1, S. Magill 1/1-0-4-5, Baumert 0-0-1-0, C. Weber 0-0-1-0, K. Weber 2-0-2-4. TOTALS: 8/4-2-13-30.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com