Slow start plagues C-M girls in loss to Belle Plaine

COLFAX — Colfax-Mingo girls basketball coach Blake Warrick wasn’t too surprised his squad started slow in its first game back since the holiday break.

During the break, participation at practice was spotty as players were out of town for the holidays and gone for other reasons.

After the first quarter, the Tigerhawks played well enough to win but the first eight minutes doomed Colfax-Mingo during a 55-42 home loss.

Colfax-Mingo fell behind in the South Iowa Cedar League game 21-0 after one quarter. The Tigerhawks outscored the Lady Plainsmen 42-34 after that but couldn’t overcome the slow start.

“We had a good practice on Monday so I still felt good about the game,” Warrick said. “But I’m not sure you can expect a great game when practices went how they went over break. We just came out flat.”

Two Tigerhawks scored 36 of the team’s 42 points. Carley Underwood finished with 16 points, two rebounds, three assists and three steals and Abi Rawlins registered 20 points, two rebounds and three assists as she came off the bench for the first time this season.

Colfax-Mingo’s first bucket of the game was a 3-pointer by Underwood with 7:50 to go in the second. Rawlins scored the team’s next six points and Underwood ended the half with another trey.

“We weren’t aggressive at all in the first quarter,” Warrick said. “We just came out like we were still on break. That’s probably on me. I have to get them going. It’s frustrating. We didn’t even get many shots up in the first.”

The Tigerhawks outscored Belle Plaine (7-2 overall, 6-2 in SICL play) 13-8 in the third. But foul trouble caught up to the home team.

Belle Plaine was in the bonus early in the second and Caylee Cunningham picked up her fourth foul with 6:15 to go in the third.

“The second quarter was better, and we started to figure things out. But then we had some girls in foul trouble so we couldn’t be too aggressive,” Warrick said. “I was pleased with our second-half effort. We came back and made a game out of it. We could have just laid down, but they fought back.”

Colfax-Mingo (4-5, 3-4) trailed by 20 points with 3:10 to go in the third. A technical foul called on Warrick appeared to ignite a Tigerhawk rally that saw C-M trim its deficit down to eight late in the game.

It was too little, too late though as Belle Plaine went on to win by 13.

Colfax-Mingo got a bucket from Charlotte Donahue to open the fourth and Cunningham and Madison Riddle also scored baskets inside the lane in the quarter.

Rawlins and Underwood fouled out in the final seconds.

“It’s a big concern,” Warrick said about the lack of scoring after Underwood and Rawlins. “We’ve talked about it. We need other players to be offensive threats. It was good to see Caylee attacking the basket. I want to see more of that. We have to have more girls score. Every team knows we have the two scorers, but they’ll take them away eventually.”

Riddle finished with a career-high 11 rebounds, while Kyra Lester grabbed eight boards and dished out two assists. Cunningham had two rebounds and two assists and Donahue pulled down two boards.

The Tigerhawks shot 26 percent from the floor, hit 6-of-17 from 3-point range and made 10-of-14 from the line. Colfax-Mingo committed 24 turnovers.

Notes: Belle Plaine head coach Scott Nilles is a Newton High School alum. He’s in his second season as the Lady Plainsmen’s head coach.