By Coach Steve Mengler
The 7th grade boys hosted the English Valley Bears on Friday, January 22nd. While the game was close throughout the first half, with the Bears leading by one at the break, the Plainsmen shooting went incredibly cold in the second half which allowed the Bears to win by a score of 46-37.
This was a disappointing effort in many areas. Defensively we struggled to create turnovers much of the game, and we had great difficulty stopping two English Valley players. The point guard from EV had 31 points on the night, as we tried a zone defense and man to man to slow him down. The center on English Valley had 13 points, so two players accounted for 44 of the 46 points they scored.
I was very disappointed that we could not find someone or a combination of people to stop or slow down these athletes. Foul problems also created some smaller than usual line ups creating some mismatches on defense. For the game the Plainsmen were called for 17 fouls, a season high, while the Bears were whistled for five fouls. I do not blame the officiating for this whatsoever; we simply did not move our feet on defense and tried to play defense with our hands which resulted in a lot of lazy fouls and subsequently a lot more free throws taken by English Valley. I am not sure why during this game our feet appeared to be glued to the floor.
Offensively we did a lot of good things to get a lot of good shots. The only problem was that we were incapable of hitting shots consistently. We took a season high 71 shots, which comes out to about three per minute of clock time which is unusually high. Unfortunately we could only convert 17 of those shots for 24 percent. The team only reached the free throw line six times converting three of these shots.
English Valley had a couple of tall players on defense which intimidated many of our smaller players. Although not a statistic I normally keep, I would guess that the Bears had at least ten if not more blocked shots which may have caused the Plainsmen to alter their shots resulting in less accuracy.
There were some positives coming out of this game. As usual we had balanced scoring, this time led by Trey Squiers with 14 points. Justin Jacobi had eight points, Vance Bohlen five points, Josh Long four points, and Cody Bergom, Austin Vranek, and Adrien Griffith each adding a bucket. Typically in a 7th grade game 37 points would be enough to claim victory, but our defense certainly let us down, especially in the second half. Leading the team in rebounding on this evening were three players, Squiers, Griffith, and Jacobi who each grabbed seven rebounds each.
Hoping to bounce back from the loss to English Valley, the junior high boys travelled to Marengo to face the Iowa Valley Tigers in another rematch from earlier in the season. The 7th grade boys probably played their best game of the year in the first game against the Tigers, falling 49-39 to a very good 7th grade team.
The second game started out much the same, with the score being tied 4-4 after three minutes. Iowa Valley was doing a great job of pressing us but we were doing an equally outstanding job of patiently breaking the press and getting good looks at the basket. Unfortunately, the wheels came off and Iowa Valley tightened the press and we made numerous unforced turnovers, allowing Iowa Valley to open the game up early with a 19-4 lead at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter of the game was much the same, with the Plainsmen trailing 30-13 at the break. Much to our boys’ credit, they continued to fight back and play hard, but ultimately fell to the Tigers by a score of 54-33.
For the fourth game in a row we struggled on the offensive end of the court. We managed to take 62 shots, hitting 14 of them for 22 percent from the field. Unfortunately we felt like we needed to force those shots a bit early before we were squared up to the basket, so many of them were well off the mark. We hit five of 12 free throws on the night indicating that we were doing a good job of taking the ball to the basket. Balanced scoring was again evident, with Bohlen and Long leading the team with eight points, Jacobi with seven points, Squiers with six points, and Vranek with four points.
We also did a good job on the boards again, pulling down 30 rebounds against a much taller Iowa Valley team. Jacobi led the way in this category with 8 boards, while Long pulled down six boards, Squiers and Griffith each grabbed four, and Vranek added three to the team rebounding total. Our defense was a little weak as we allowed Iowa Valley easy looks at the basket, especially in transition.