Cyclones win close battle over Monarchs
In the first quarter of Thursday’s road match against the Denison Monarchs with the HCHS Cyclones boys basketball leading by seven points, Junior Cyclone Dallas McDowell snagged a rebound, went for a turnaround fade away jump shot, putting his team up 12-3 en route to a 57-51 win.
“Anytime you get that second put back it’s big,” said Cyclone Head Coach Mitch Osborn of McDowell. “That was good to see.”
The first basket of the game came from Sophomore Cyclone Kobe Klaassen from 3-point range, followed by a shot at the basket from Senior Jozef Reisz to give the Cyclones an early 5-0 lead. The Monarchs got their first basket Junior Camdyn Nemitz to cut the lead back to three points.
“We’ve been practicing hard, playing as a team,” McDowell said. “We’re figuring out how to get wins and we’re trusting each other.”
McDowell made a shot from 3-point range, which would be the final basket of the quarter with his team leading 18-5. The Monarchs opened the second quarter on a 3-0 run with free throws from Juniors Linkin Beeck and Blaine Grady, putting the Monarchs back within 10 points, forcing a timeout from Osborn.
When play resumed, Jozef Reisz got his team their first bucket of the quarter. The Monarchs offense continued to scratch and claw keeping the game close with a 3-pointer from Junior Santi Lopez, followed later by a mid-range shot from Senior Nash Langenfeld, cutting the Cyclone lead to 22-14.
Just before halftime with the Cyclones leading by nine, Senior Weston Reisz made a shot from 3-point range, giving his team a 12-point lead heading into the locker room.
“We’ve got to come out the first three minutes and get out of the gate,” Osborn said. “We only scored four points the first four minutes, but we held them to five, but then we went on a nice little run.”
Klaassen scored the first basket of the third quarter, but the Monarchs answered with back-to-back shots from Grady and Nemitz. However, the Cyclones offense made the next four shots, including another 3-pointer from McDowell, but Lopez and Junior Owen Galvin made back-to-back 3-pointers before Jozef Reisz made the final bucket of the quarter with the Cyclones leading 42-28.
The fourth quarter began with a 3-point shot from Beeck, putting the Monarchs down by 11 points. Following Beeck’s 3-pointer, both teams got locked in a free throw shooting battle with the Monarchs slowly chipping away at the Cyclone lead, but in the end the Cyclones hung on by six for their third win of the season with the final shot of the game coming at the buzzer from Lopez.
“Crazy things happen in this gym,” Osborn said. “It seems like we never play very well here at Denison. You give them credit. I thought we did some uncharacteristic things. We can play a lot better especially coming off Christmas break. We’ll take a win. You never turn down a win. You just got to grind it out.”
The Cyclones will be back in action Friday night on the road against the 6-1 Clarinda Cardinals who have won two consecutive games. The Cardinals are led by Freshman Cooper Baumgart averaging 11.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, along with Senior Kyle Wagoner averaging 3.3 assists per game.
“We’ve got to go home, get rested up, and come ready to play,” McDowell said.
