Author: Nathan Bloechl

Des Moines — Day One of the IGHSAU State Basketball tournament commenced yesterday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

Here’s a full look at the scoreboard:

5A

Johnston 47, Dowling Catholic 38

Pleasant Valley 52, Iowa City High 47

West Des Moines Valley 49, Des Moines Roosevelt 44

Waterloo West 67, Ankeny Centennial 59

3A

Unit Christian 40, Davenport Assumption 37

Estherville-Lincoln Central 49, Sergeant Bluff-Luton 34

West Lyon 38, Roland-Story 23

Iowa City — University of Iowa sophomore Caitlin Clark was named Big Ten Player of the Week, the conference announced Monday.

This week’s award is the seventh Big Ten Player of the Week honor this season for Clark.

In three games for Iowa last week, including two top-10 wins, Clark averaged 33 points, 9.3 assists and 7.7 rebounds per game.

Clark and the No. 12 Hawkeyes will face the winner of Minnesota vs. Northwestern on Friday at the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.

Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m.

By: Nathan Bloechl — sports@kilj.com 

Iowa City — University of Iowa men’s basketball sophomore Keegan Murray has been named the Big Ten Player of the Week, it was announced Monday by the Big Ten Conference Office.

The All-America candidate has earned the Big Ten weekly honor a program-best five times this season.

Murray is the only NCAA Division I player this season averaging 23+ points, 8+ rebounds, and 2+ blocks).

He has scored 25 or more 12 games this season, the most of any player from a major conference this season.

Closing the season in a flurry, the No. 24 Hawkeyes earned another easy, 82-61 win last night over Northwestern.

Murray finished with 26 points and 18 boards to improve the Hawkeyes to 21-8.

KILJ — The Iowa Basketball Coaches Association has released their rosters for the upcoming Pizza Ranch All-Star game.

Several area names are honored.

On the Southeast Iowa Boys’ All-Stars is Mount Pleasant senior forward Dewon Trent, who paced the Panthers with 13.8 points per game and over seven boards.

He’ll be joined by SEC rivals Amarion Davis (Burlington), Kasen Bailey (Washington) and Dayton Davis (Fort Madison).

The team will be coached by former Mount Pleasant head and assistant coach Caleb Akey, who’s now at Burlington High School.

On the girls’ side, SEC standouts Malarie Ross (Fort Madison) and Abby Wolter (Keokuk) made the Southeast Iowa Girls’ All-Stars.

Super Conference leaders Megan Harrell (Notre Dame) and Kaylee Corbin (Louisa-Muscatine) also were selected.

Mount Pleasant head coach Curt Watson will co-coach the Southeast Iowa Girls’ All-stars with Tipton’s Matt Bolger.

Mount Pleasant — Tournament host and top-seeded Iowa Wesleyan University earned a decisive 84-59 victory against No. 2 seed Haskell Indian Nations University (Kansas) Sunday to win the 2022 Continental Athletic Conference women’s basketball tournament championship.

The Tigers took control of the game early, jumping out to a 22-9 first-quarter lead. They followed with 21-point efforts in the second and third quarters to take a commanding 64-44 lead into the final 10-minute period.

The hosts followed with another consistent quarter by scoring 20 points to close out the impressive tournament performance.

Iowa Wesleyan made 49% of their field goals in the contest and connected on 10 3-point field goals.

All five of the team’s starters were double-figure scorers, led by Brittany West’s 24 points. Kyla Moore drained five 3-pointers to add 19 points. Breanna Wendland piled on 16 points while Maci Kuchta and Brielle Baker chipped in 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Haskell Indian Nations shot 44.4% but were outrebounded by a 34-22 margin in the contest. Mahpiya Irving came off the bench to score 11 points to lead the team. Tiana Guillory and Marylin Goodman each contributed nine points.

Iowa Wesleyan and Haskell Indian Nations will both represent the CAC as automatic qualifiers to the NAIA national tournament.

Mount Pleasant — Florida College scored 51 points in each half and received 32 points from Matt Simpson to capture the 2022 Continental Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament championship Sunday with a 102-82 victory against Washington Adventist University (Maryland) at Iowa Wesleyan University.

The Falcons, the tournament’s top seed, scored over 100 points in two of their three tournament games.

Iowa Wesleyan was the only score to hold them to double digits.

A 3-point field goal from Washington Adventist’s Mastadi Pitt cut the deficit to 31-25 at the 7:14 mark of the first half.

Pitt registered a game-high 33 points to lead the Shock’s strong effort.

Florida College led 51-37 at halftime and maintained a comfortable lead throughout the second half. A four-point play from Simpson gave the Falcons a 65-44 lead five minutes into the second half.

Devon Flowers scored 12 points for the Shock while Kyron Martin added 11 points off the bench.

Florida College and Washington Adventist will both represent the CAC as automatic qualifiers to the NAIA national tournament.

Fairfield — In the third meeting between the two schools, did we really expect anything to be different?

Danville and WACO played two nip and tuck games already this year and Saturday was no different.

Withstanding blow after blow, both teams slugged it out like heavyweight boxers — in the end however it was the late game heroics of Cadence Williams, Ty Carr and Sawyer Nelson guiding Danville to a 46-39 triple overtime win over WACO.

Williams’ broke out of a shooting slump that spanned a month the senior missing every three he took since January 25th.

That changed just seconds into the third overtime which would give the Bears a lead they would not relinquish.

The win moved Danville to the state tournament for the first time in six years where, as the fifth seed, they’ll play No. 4 Lake Mills on March 7th at 10:30 a.m.

Williams finished with five points, but it was the monster play of senior Sawyer Nelson that Danville needed.

Nelson finished with 20 points and 20 boards to lead the Bears, while Ty Carr added 11.

WACO was paced by sophomore wing Hunter Hughes and his 11 points. Simeon Reichenbach had nine while Mason Miller chipped in with eight.

Danville is now 23-2.

WACO ends their terrific season 20-5.