In the final basketball doubleheader of the season, Aplington-Parkersburg swept South Hardin Tuesday, as aired on 99 The Wave and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel. The girls won 68-59 and the #7 (2A) boys won 81-57.
AP Boys Coach Aaron Thomas notched his 400th career win as a head coach, recording his 294th at AP after winning 106 at Union.
“I’m obviously getting older, but just been so blessed at both schools with great, great assistant coaches,” Thomas says. “And I can think of everyone, I’d like to thank them all by name. And I’ve had really, really good players who bought in, and to achieve something like that, it’s not because of me. And honestly, probably the MVP of it all, the one person who’s been a part of all 400 is my wife Ellie, just how supportive she is, the fact she lets me pursue my passions of coaching. When we first got married, she was helping me do the stats, watching games with us. And then as the kids came, just her support. And it’s not easy being a coach’s wife. So, so, so thankful for her and who she is. And every one of those victories is just as much hers as it is mine.”
The game featured the Tigers jumping out to the early advantage, leading 18-14 after the first quarter. But the Falcons cranked up the intensity and limited their opponent to just three points in the second quarter. Maintaining a large lead throughout, they closed out the game with reserves on the floor.
“They’re a very good basketball team. They’re physical. They got guys who can shoot it and score it. I didn’t like our pace early. Like they were dictating that. We were getting back cut. They cut probably better than anybody we’ve played. And I thought the second quarter we made some good adjustments to get into our matchup. So I thought that part was much better. We didn’t get back cut. We walled up. And then we started making shots. I think we hit six threes, I think an 18-0 run. And then from there, we just kind of kept building. I think we have a little more depth than they did and that helped. With two posts we can go back and forth. Dolash is a handful, but he had to sit with those fouls. But I really liked our intensity and effort. The fact we got to 81 was good against a very good team.”
Benny Waller led with 23 points and Tyler Wedeking added 18. Owen Larson led the Tigers with 13.
The Falcon girls built a 21-point lead in the second half, but the Tigers came back. They got to within five points in the fourth quarter with five three-pointers by Adeline Cook, but the Falcons put the game away at the free throw line. Cook led South Hardin with 21 points. Lorna Bernard led the Falcons with 22.
The Falcon boys will return to action Thursday at Hampton-Dumont-CAL. The other three teams have closed their regular seasons.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAoktGAobC8?si=UdzgstCJ0N0AqTXT&w=560&h=315]
