The Aplington-Parkersburg basketball teams each won by running clock rule margins in a doubleheader at AGWSR Tuesday, as aired on 99 The Wave and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel. The girls won 64-16 and the boys won 66-25.
In the girls game, the Falcons scored 25 points in the first quarter and 20 in the second, building an insurmountable lead within the first 16 minutes. They held the Cougars to eight points in each half, punctuating another stout defensive performance. Sophomore Kiara Morris tied for the scoring lead with 14 points.
“I thought our defense was the strongest tonight,” Morris says. “We had a lot of steals and our press was really good the first half, and that’s what led us to the victory I would say. I work best after rebounds. I’m getting the rebound and I go right back up and that helps me a lot. And then also just one on one doing post moves, that’s usually my best thing.”
Lorna Bernard also scored 14 and Kolbie Wangsness added 12, moving the Falcons to 3-0.
AGWSR Coach David Koop says despite the lopsided loss, he feels the team took a step in the right direction.
“We got better, and that’s the big thing,” Koop says. “At times it didn’t look like it, but I can definitely see improvement from our last game about a week and a half ago. We’re struggling with the little things still, breaking the press consistently, and then tonight with a great AP team, you’ve got to make sure when you break the press that you slow it down and run offense. We broke it both times in that first minute, and then we one pass and shot it, and that doesn’t help us when we’re trying to work the clock. And we talked about that all week, sometimes when you get open looks, you want your kids to knock them down too. So finding that fine line between that is hard to do sometimes, but we played hard I can’t fault our kids’ effort, and we’ve just got to keep getting better.”
Claire Meyer and Carlie Hoodjer each scored five points. The Cougars are now 0-2.
The Falcon boys raced out to a comfortable lead early with 25 points in the first quarter, holding the Cougars to two in the period. But AGWSR showed fight and outscored the Falcons 15-13 in the second quarter. AP’s pace of play wore down the opponent throughout the second half, including a shutout in a running clock fourth quarter. Sophomore Tyler Wedeking led with 25 points, including six made three-pointers.
“I think the difference between the first and second quarter, we turned the ball over eight times in the second quarter and zero in the first,” Wedeking says. “Obviously that’s a huge difference, giving them points off turnovers and just not taking care of the ball. And I think we just executed overall the entire game way better than we did in the first game. The last two games, both teams have been playing 2-3 zone, and that’s kind of where I live at is three-point line, especially if teams play 2-3 zone. Letting it come to me, not forcing it is the biggest thing though.”
Cole Brouwer added 10 points, moving the Falcons to 2-0.
AGWSR Coach Ryley Schipper says the game gave the team a foundation to build on.
“We knew they’d come out, they’d get in transition, and we didn’t do a very good job in that first quarter of getting back in transition,” Schipper says. “But I was most happy with the resolve we showed in the second quarter. I thought we played a really, really good second quarter tonight. We competed. I thought our guys’ effort was really, really high. Guys on the floor, defensively communicating really, really well. AP did a great job of executing their offense, hit some shots, hit some open shots and you’ve got to live with that sometimes. But we can really build from there and from the way, especially from that resolve we showed in that second quarter, proves to me that we’re not gonna quit on anything no matter what the score is and we can really build. It’s game one, there’s a lot of things we can clean up, and we’ll get those cleaned up in film. But effort-wise, you can’t teach that, and proud of the kids for the way they competed.”
Bo Starr led the 0-1 Cougars with 10 points.
In their next action on Friday, the Falcons will be at Columbus Catholic and the Cougars will be at East Marshall.
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjw9UmVTpro?si=YM-tB3lltly3ZTAK&w=560&h=315]
