By Isaiah Olson
Five-seeded Cuba City fell in a close game to four-seeded Iowa – Grant on Friday after advancing past twelve-seeded Prairie Du Chien in the Division 5B play-in round.
The game began with an unusual moment when Cuba City’s Landon Geyer held the ball for nearly the first minute before Iowa-Grant’s Sam Lundell took advantage. Lundell stole the ball when Geyer briefly turned toward the bench and raced down the floor for a wide-open layup.
After a Cuba City layup from Hudson Kieler to tie the game, Iowa- Grant jumped out to an early 7-2 lead three minutes into the game. The Panthers were playing great defensively contesting every shot and not giving the Cubans any easy looks.
For the next four minutes both teams found their rhythm offensively and scored on almost every possession. They went back-and-forth trading basket after basket. Every shot felt like it was gonna go in. The Panthers held a narrow 16-12 lead during the stretch before Cuba City began to push back.
Briggs Runde would make a layup two minutes later to give Cuba City their first lead of the game 17-16. This sparked the Cubans to cause two turnovers in the backcourt from their fullcourt press resulting in easy layups to jump to a 21-16 lead.
Cuba City continued their onslaught stretching out to a 33-23 lead with around five minutes left of the half characterized by their ability to get good looks in the paint on consistent scoring possessions.
Iowa-Grant switched to their zone defense to slow this hot Cuba City offense down. They would slowly chip away at the deficit until the end of the half. Still, the Cubans held a 37-30 halftime lead after Cameryn Guler recorded a key block on a three-point attempt to end the half.
Hudson Kieler led Cuba City at half with nine points. Carson Collins, Cameryn Guler, and Landon Geyer all had six points each.
Sam Lundell had 11 going into halftime for Iowa-Grant including three three-pointers. Landon Friesen had eight, and Grant Richard followed with four.
Iowa-Grant came out the half determined to take their lead back with a heightened defensive intensity. They continued to get stops, making every shot a challenge for Cuba City. The Panthers were able to turn defense into offense on the other end to bring it to a one-score game.
The Panthers would go on a big 7- 0 run when Treaton Loeffelholz knocked down a straightaway catchand-shoot basket with 11:45 left to go in the game to put them on top 41- 39, their first lead since 9:45 left to go in the first half. Hudson Kieler ended their run with a layup to knot the score at forty one.
Both teams would continue to go back and forth with several ties and lead changes. Iowa-Grant countered Cuba City’s high-pressure defense with a lot of successful drives and inside layups, aided by knocking down their free-throws. This helped them to slowly pull away to lead 56-51 with 5:20 left. They continued to pull away to a nine point lead, but the Cubans brought it back to a five-point game with two-and-a-half minutes left leading to an Iowa Grant timeout with 2:30 to go.
Grant Rickard defeated Cuba City’s fullcourt pressure, as well and hit his bonus free throws to take a 64- 55 lead over the Cubans leading to a timeout. Lundell then got a big block on a three-pointer against the Cubans after the timeout to get the ball back. But the Cubans made one final push.
Trevor VanNatta raced coast-tocoast for a quick three-pointer to cut the Cubans deficit to 64-60 with ten seconds remaining. It wouldn’t be enough though as Iowa-Grant sealed the game at the free-throw line.
Iowa-Grant moves on in Division 5B playoffs with 66-62 win over Cuba City.
Panther coach Shawn Dailey gave several comments about the game and talked about his seniors.
“Going into the Cuba City game we knew beating them three times in onr season was going to be very difficult.
“Offensively I felt like we would be able to score on them. I just wasn’t sure how we were going to stop them defensively. I knew we couldn’t play them in man because we don’t match up well them and Cuba can flat out shoot it.
“In the first half everything I was doing defensively wasn’t working. Cuba City had no problems with it and were scoring at will. They came in very well prepared and were executing every trip down.
‘The adjustments we made at halftime were to go straight man defense.
“Even though we hadn’t played or practiced man defense in over a month it was our only option. We just needed to start stringing together stops on the defensive side of the ball no matter how ugly it might look.
“The adjustments during halftime On the offensive end was that I challenged Treaton Loeffelholz a captain, three year starter and first team all conference player to basically do more. I felt like he was just going through the motions in that 1st half. He hadn’t scored a basket. I asked him is this the way you want to go down and how your basketball career ends.
“Immediately to start the second half Treaton established himself down low and started playing more bully ball backing his way down and scoring. He also was much more active on the defensive end going after loose balls and getting every rebound.
“We started getting stops on defense and slowly chipping away at their lead.
“Grant Rickard was huge on the night. He seems to be the Cuba killer. In the three games that we have played Cuba City Grant has averaged 18ppg and lived at the free throw line. I couldn’t be more pleased with how well he played for us.
“Landon Friesen did a fantastic job chasing Cuba’s 1st team all conference player Hudson Kieler around the whole game. I felt that Lando’s defense seemed to tire Hudson out late in the game.
“Sam Lundell played his usual game as being a stat stuffer in every category. I couldn’t afford to take Sam out once in the entire game. I imagine he was pretty exhausted afterwards.
“Another huge key to the game was Everett Zimmer. I can’t say enough about this kid. Everett had been sick for a week. He missed the game at Cuba City and hadn’t practiced all week leading up to our tournament game. Everett had lost 13 lbs in 1 week. He didn’t start for us and I went into the game thinking that I wasn’t even going to play him.
“That all changed when Cuba was looking to run away with it in the first half. I turned to Everett and asked him if he thought he could give it a go. Naturally he said yes. I felt the minutes Everett gave us were huge and just what we needed at that time. He is such a great leader and an extension of me on the court that is invaluable. Everett had some huge buckets in that second half for us and finished with 8 points when he wasn’t supposed to even play.
“Lastly, I want to touch on how awesome our fans were. We really packed the gymnasium and it was so loud in there I couldn’t get the refs to hear me yelling for a timeout. Such an amazing atmosphere for our players to play in.”
SCORE BY HALVES
CC 37 25 62 I-G 30 36 66 BOX SCORE
CUBA CITY 62: (fg-ft-tp) Collins 3-2-9, Kieler 5-7-18, B. Loeffelholz 2-1-5, Van Natta 4-1-10, Guler 2-1-6, Runde 2-0-4, Guyer 2-4-10. Totals 20-16/24-62. Fouls-15
IOWA-GRANT 66: Schultz 1-0- 3, Friesen 6-0-12, Lundell 5-2-15, Zimmer 4-0-8, Rickard 6-7-20, Fisher 0-0-0, Lange 0-0-0, Loeffelhola 2-4-8. Totals 24-13/20-66. Fouls-17
3 point goals:
CC-Guyer 2, Collins 1, Kieler 1, Van Natta 1,Guler 1
I-G-Lundell 3, Rickard 1, Schultz 1
