The old saying is sports is that “defense” wins championships, a person would truly believe that after watching the Mt. Pleasant Panther boys basketball team win a 3A district championship game over Williamsburg 47-26 at Fairfield Friday night. M.P. slapped a tough man to man defense on the Raiders and turned Faith Pope loose offensively to get out to a 13-4 lead at the end of 1 quarter, and outscored Williamsburg 14-8 in the 2nd period to build a 27-12 halftime lead and get the game under control. The Panthers then continued the tough “D” in the second half and became very patient on offense to get good shots and run valuable time off the clock. Pope ended the night with 20 points, Cameron Frank added 9. Mt. Pleasant is now 18-5 on the year and plays in the substate championship game again tonight, this time it’s against Solon who is 19-4 at Iowa City West High at 7 p.m. The Spartans used tough defense to beat Keokuk Friday night in their district championship winning 49-30, the Chiefs were held scoreless in the second quarter by the Solon defense so tonight could be a game where it’s a struggle for each team to create offense.
Solon is led by Joe Weeks a 6’5” senior who scores 12 points per game, sophomore Emilio Villagrana scores 10 pts. Per game as he has hit 22-3 point field goals this season on 77 attempts.
KILJ-FM 105.5 and kilj.com will carry the game live.
Here is the class 3A substate pairings for tonight:
CLASS 3A:
Marion vs. Assumption, Davenport (at Clinton)
Atlantic vs. Harlan (at Council Bluffs, Abraham Lincoln)
Mount Pleasant vs. Solon West (at Iowa City, West)
Bishop Heelan Catholic, Sioux City vs. MOC-Floyd Valley (at Le Mars)
Crestwood, Cresco vs. Vinton-Shellsburg (at McLeod Center, Cedar Falls)
Clear Lake vs. Waverly-Shell Rock (at McLeod Center, Cedar Falls)
Grinnell vs. Centerville (at Oskaloosa)
Norwalk vs. Dallas Center-Grimes (at Waukee)
The Danville Bears boys basketball team had a really good weekend. Friday night they rolled over Pekin in the 1A district championship at Muscatine 88-58. That set them up to battle Sigourney in the substate championship at Oskaloosa Saturday night and the Bears rolled to a 61-29 victory to send them to the State Tournament for the third straight year. Steven and Michael Soukup again provided the offense for the Bears, Steven popped in 36 and Michael contributed 13. Danville will be the #1 seed in this years Class 1A tournament field and open up the tourney against 8th seeded Wapsie Valley who has a record of 17-8. They are led by 5’11” senior Mitch Boevers who averages 19.3 points per game and has hit 64 of 186 3 point field goal attempts on the year.
Danville has finished second the last two years dropping championship games to Storm Lake St. Mary’s in 2011, they fell to Boyden Hull last year. This year Danville comes in ranked #1 and undefeated at 25-0. Over the last 4 years Danville has won 101 games and lost just 4.
THE SOUTHEAST IOWA SUPER CONFERENCE HAS ANNOUNCED THEIR ALL CONFERENCE BOYS BASKETBALL TEAMS.
NORTH DIVISION SOUTH DIVISION
1st Team All Conference 1st Team All Conference
Bryan Forbes Sr Lone Tree Mike Soukup Sr Danville
Jordan Wagenbach Sr Mediapolis Steven Soukup Sr Danville
Cameron Gingerich Sr IMS Connor Hogberg Sr Danville
Peyton Thompson Sr IMS Alex Kuster Sr Notre Dame
Jake Hootman Sr Highland Kullen Koelker Sr Notre Dame
Logan Forbes Sr Lone Tree Cole Riniker Sr Notre Dame
Cade Millikin Jr Pekin Mitch Moeller Sr HTC
Max Fricke Jr Winfield-MU Marcus Knight Sr HTC
Talon McFarland Sr Highland Thomas Fitzsimmons Jr Van Buren
Jordan Schoonover Sr Wapello Dakota Showman Cardinal
Gabe Lorack Sr Lone Tree
5th ranked Burlington Notre Dame girls basketball team begins their quest for a state championship today as the first ever 5 class girls state basketball tournament begins it’s week long run at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. The 21-3 Nikes will play Colo Nesco who has a record of 23-2 at 1:30 today, KILJ-AM 1130 and kilj.com will have the daytime state tournament games on live all week, KILJ-FM 105.5 will carry the night games.
Villisca plays Newell Fonda at 10 a.m. this morning, the it’s Bellevue Marquette vs Ar-We-Va at 11:45, following the Notre Dame game will be Earlham against Central Lyon.
Class 2A play begins at 5 p.m. with Pella Christian against Western Christian, Aplington Parkersburg plays Panorama at 6:45 and the final game of the first day has Iowa City Regina playing Lawton Bronson. KILJ-FM will not carry the state tourney games tonight because of our coverage of the MPHS boys substate championship game.
The Iowa State Cyclones play host to Kansas tonight, KILJ-AM 1130 will carry the game beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Jimmy Johnson won the Daytona 500 race Sunday to begin the NASCAR racing season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was second. Pole setter Danika Patrick ended up 8th.
The NFL scouting combine has been going on in Indianapolis, James Vandenberg who quarterbacked the Iowa Hawkeyes the last two seasons showed his stuff at the combine. James who led Keokuk high school to a state championship ran a 4.92 40 yard dash 6th fastest amoung 16 QB’s, his long jump was 4th best and his vertical jump was 3rd best
Mt. Pleasant Girls Softball Registration will be held Saturday, March 9th & March 16th
at Van Allen Gym 9 am – noon
get more information at www.mpsoftball.com
What: Mt Pleasant Easter Weekend 3 on 3 Tournament
Where: Mt Pleasant High School, 2104 South Grand Avenue
Who: 3rd-12th grade boys/girls; open-35 & older men/women
When: March 30th, 2013…$50 per team…max 4 players per team
Contact: Ronnie Ashton at ronnie.ashton@iowa.gov for more info
Phone: 319-931-2896
Format: 4 team round-robin in each division; guaranteed 3 games
Medals awarded to 1st & 2nd place in each division
Send registration to: Mt Pleasant Tourney Teams
1130 South Linden Lane
Mt Pleasant, Ia, 52641
