Cyclones drop close battle on road to Glenwood

Glenwood Senior Caden Johnson scored 20 points on the path to victory for the Rams Tuesday night at home over the HCHS Cyclones for its ninth win of the season.

The Rams came out of the gate scoring 16 in the first quarter, taking a 6-point lead into the second. The second quarter was much lower in scoring with neither team scoring in double digits, with a 22-14 Rams lead into the locker room at halftime.

“We were down 22-14 at half and came out of the half with a strong start and 8-0 run to tie the game,” said Cyclones Head Coach Mitch Osborn.

The Cyclones went on an 8-0 run to start. Osborn credited his guys for fighting back and not giving up.

“Franz Reisz played tougher than nails inside and had 10 rebounds, and Jacob Birch also had 8 boards,” Osborn said. “I thought our guys played extremely hard the whole game and we just need to work harder on becoming more consistent at the offensive end.”

The Cyclones started to get their wheels turning to open the fourth quarter, outscoring the Rams 14-7, but it wasn’t enough. The Rams won the game in close fashion, 47-44. Birch finished his night with 15 points, leading the Cyclones in scoring, while Reisz had 7 points, 10 rebounds and 2 assists.

“We were behind 42-32 with six minutes left in the game and then mounted a nice comeback, and had opportunity to tie the game with 14.7 seconds left from the FT line and made only one shot, and then had a pretty good 3-point look with three seconds left to tie the game, but fell short,” Osborn said.

Glenwood remains undefeated at home. Osborn credited them for their efforts.

“I give Glenwood credit as they are a very good defensive team, but we struggled shooting from the three point line, going 6 for 26,” he said. “We took some ill-advised tough shots during the very tough second quarter when we only scored four points.”

The Cyclones will be back at home Friday night at 7:30 p.m. to take on the Atlantic Trojans (4-7), who won its most recent game over the Clarinda Cardinals Tuesday night at home. The Trojans are led by Colton Rasmussen with 170 points, averaging 15.5 points per game.

“We have a very tough stretch coming up and we just have to keep working, as we have a great team and a super bunch of guys,” Osborn said.