By Coach Steve Mengler
The 7th and 8th grade boys travelled to Traer to face North Tama in a make up basketball game Dec. 18. Between the date the original game was snowed out and the make-up, North Tama had midterms which decreased the number of players available. Add to this a time constraint because of a varsity basketball game in the same gym starting at 6 p.m. and we had the makings of chaos. So to make everything work, it was decided that six quarters would be played, and the 8th grade played the odd numbered quarters and the 7th grade played the even numbered quarters against a mixture of North Tama seventh and eighth grade athletes.
When the dust had settled after six quarters, the Plainsmen were victorious by a score of 53-30. The 8th grade was dominant over the Redhawks while the seventh grade team held their own against the three eighth grade athletes intermixed with the seventh grade team. Both teams shot well while they were in the game, with the 7th grade hitting 7 of 27 shots for 26 percent while the 8th grade hit 18 of 51 shots for 35 percent. It was an adventure at the free throw lane however, with both teams combining for 3 of 19 from the charity stripe. This is definitely an area that can be improved in the future for both teams. Scoring points for the Plainsmen were Logan Phillippe with 10, Vance Bohlen eight, Adam Daily seven, Josh Long six, Ryan Janss four, Matthew Mengler four, Ross Henning four, Derek O’Brien four, Adrien Griffith two, Lane Bachelder two, and Austin Vranek two.
Rebounding was down a bit for both teams, with the team grabbing a total of 50 rebounds. Part of this can be attributed to the stingy defense, especially of the 8th grade press that created numerous steals and other turnovers. Leading the team in rebounding was Janss with nine rebounds, Daily and Justin Jacobi with six, Henning with five, and Long with three boards.
Logan Phillippe and Josh Long had excellent floor games for each squad. Logan led the 8th grade both in points and also in steals with eight during the three quarters he played. Josh was aggressive on the boards as well as driving the ball into the lane and consistently hitting short jump shorts.
The Plainsmen 7th grade boys’ basketball team suffered its first defeat of the year against Union Monday night, falling 44-25. The game was close throughout the first quarter, but the depth of Union quickly wore on the Plainsmen as the Knights jumped to a 13-point halftime lead. The lead grew dramatically in the third quarter before the Plainsmen narrowed the gap down the stretch. Union has 27 7th grade basketball players this year and they brought their top ten, which caused us match up problems throughout the game.
For the first time this year the boys did not react well to a strong man-to-man defense. As a team we turned the ball over 35 times which is a huge amount for a 24-minute game. This was 35 times we had the ball and did not get a shot at the basket, which makes it very difficult to win a ball game. In the first quarter alone we only had five shots at the basket hitting two. As the game went on we did a better job of handling the pressure so that we hit 25 percent of our shots, 11 of 44 from the field. We had a lot of easy shots from six to eight feet that our players were unable to hit which made it difficult to stay even.
The team scoring was not particularly balanced with only four players scoring. Justin Jacobi led the team with 12 points, Adrien Griffith six, Vance Bohlen five, and Trey Squiers two. We also struggled again from the free throw line hitting only three of eight shots.
Defensively we played a very strong first quarter to trail by only four considering we were not getting many shots. The boys played a solid man to man defense and then we switched into a zone as we got tired. Our zone is sometimes weak because some of the athletes do not understand their responsibilities but we will continue to work on this. Hitting the boards was more of a team effort in this game, with Jacobi leading the team with six, Griffith and Squiers with four each, and Long and Austin Vranek with three boards each.
The next game will be at home against Iowa Valley on January 6th. Other home games will follow with Montezuma January 13th, English Valley January 22nd, and HLV on January 25th.

Team members include, from left: Vance Bohlen, Josh Long, Cody Bergom and Jacob Fabor. Back row: Coach Steve Mengler, Adrien Griffith, Justin Jacobi and Trey Squiers.