The Aplington-Parkersburg basketball teams will play the first night of back-to-back games Thursday when they travel to East Marshall, a doubleheader that’ll air on 99 The Wave and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel.
With one conference loss apiece, the boys game will be a battle to remain near the top of the standings. AP (4-1, 4-1 NICL) is coming off Tuesday’s 59-31 win at Hudson, a bounce-back from a loss at Denver last week. Senior Sully Janssen says the team likes its chances if it continues to be strong defensively; they’ve given up just 42 points per game to opponents.
“I think at the core, we’re a defensive team, so it all just comes down to hustle,” Janssen says. “Every 50-50 ball, we want to get. And when we win those 50-50 balls, then we usually do pretty good out there. Thursday is a huge, huge game to keep competing in the conference. That’s our focus, one game at a time. We know what we need to do on Thursday. We’re going to have to play even tougher than we did tonight. So we’ll just take it one step at a time.”
East Marshall (3-1, 3-1 NICL) is coming off Tuesday’s 65-60 loss at Grundy Center, where they gave up a 45-33 halftime lead. Four players average in double figures, led by Jackson Bidwell and Jaxson Boswell each at 12 points per game.
The Falcon girls (4-2, 3-2 NICL) have lost consecutive games, including a gut-wrenching 52-48 overtime loss at Hudson Tuesday. East Marshall (3-3, 1-3 NICL) was defeated by #10 (2A) Grundy Center 71-12 Tuesday.
Coverage will start at 6:00 p.m., followed by the tipoff at 6:15.
