Tigers have won four of last five games, move into fourth place in WIC
By Drew Herron - AJ/NT Sports
WALNUT – Watch out Western Iowa Conference, Griswold looks to
be for real.
Real competitive, at least.
The Tigers picked up a key victory on the road Friday night
in Walnut, defeating host AHST 48-46 in a win that moves them up one spot in the
WIC standings.
It was the Tigers’ fourth win in the last five games, and it
pushes the team’s record to 9-4 on the season.
“It was an exciting game at least, but it was pretty ugly on
our part,” Griswold coach Chad Rodgers said afterwards. “We’ve struggled to put
together four solid quarters. We were a little lucky tonight.”
Griswold raced out of the gate and led 21-10 at the end of
one quarter before finding itself bogged down in the second, were outscored 9-3
to take a 24-19 lead into the halftime break.
AHST would climb back into the game, and eventually take a
fourth-quarter lead before late heroics lifted Griswold on to victory.
The Tigers forced a steal with 10 seconds left in a tie game
before calling a timeout to set up the final play. After the trigger from the
sideline, junior Mason Boucher was fouled and put on the line where he hit a
pair of free throws to secure a much-welcomed victory for the Tigers.
On Friday night, Griswold shot 42 percent from the floor,
and got it done early from long range in atypical fashion for this Tigers’
team. Five of their first seven shots were taken from 3-point range as Griswold
built an early lead.
Earlier in the year, Griswold’s shooting percentage was as
high as 46 percent, though that is a figure that has tapered down some, even
through a successful stretch.
“That’s not our game, we don’t shoot 3’s very well,” coach Rodgers
says. “But lately, we’ve just begun to fall in love with it.”
Seven different players would score for Griswold, including
Tyrel Peters’ 14 to lead the way. Walker Mundorf also finished in double
figures, chipping in 11 points on a 5-of-8 effort from the field.
Aside from the 10-point loss earlier in the week to
Underwood (64-54), the Tigers have been on a tear since returning from
Christmas Break.
“This group has done a great job figuring out how to win in
close situations,” coach Rodgers says. “It’s just now, we need to find out to
play well against these really good teams in our conference like IKM-Manning,
Treynor, Underwood, and even AHST. At times, they just look a lot better than
us. They make us play too fast, and get us out of control, and we just look
like a sub-par team. But when we are relaxed and slow things down, then we’ve
got a good group of kids who play hard and leave everything on the court. When
we do the right things the right way, then we can play with all of these
teams.”
The victory over AHST moves them up one spot in the WIC
standings to fourth place in the 10-team league. IKM-Manning has a grip on the
top spot at 9-0, and Treynor is just one game behind at 8-1. Underwood at 7-2,
sits in third, followed by Griswold.
The Tigers have a favorable schedule coming up, with its
next three games set against teams with a combined 7-25 record. It’s an
opportunity to get some momentum going before facing IKMM and Treynor at the
end of the month.
It’s a time to keep improving, and to see how far the Tigers
can push at the top.
“Our goal essentially is to finish in the top half of the
conference, we know how tough the conference is,” coach Rodgers says.
“Griswold is not a traditional basketball power. I’ve been
here 20 years, and we’ve won the conference once. It’s one of those things
where, we know our place. We are competitive and we are scrappy, and sometimes
people pat us on the back and tell us how hard we play. But we’ve haven’t been
able to put together enough wins to scare anybody. I don’t think we had any
serious aspirations of winning the conference, but we want to be in that same
conversation as IKM and Treynor, at least…that we can play with elite teams.”
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