March 28, 2024

Lenox wins, Panthers fall at Southwestern Jamboree

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Eight boys basketball teams got a final tuneup for this week’s openers at the Southwestern Jamboree Saturday afternoon.

Each game was two quarters, and the Harlan Cyclones showed some offensive firepower in knocking off Chariton 49-34 in the highest scoring affair of the day. Returning all-stater Kyle Juhl scored 13 points and guard Caleb Rasmussen led the Cyclones with 15 points.

Individual scoring wasn’t available for Chariton, which included 6-6 senior T.J. Hockenson, a University of Iowa tight end recruit.

The day opened with Mount Ayr vs. Prairie City-Monroe, coached by Fred Lorensen, father of SWCC men’s basketball coach Todd Lorensen.

Unofficially, PC-M won the game, but it was a non-scored scrimmage since Mount Ayr has already played in a jamboree at Central Decatur last week.

“They got ahead by about 10 in the first quarter, I suppose, and then they got some runouts against our freshmen at the end there,” Raider coach Bret Ruggles said. “It was a good experience for our guys.”

Mount Ayr travels to Lamoni today and hosts Creston Tuesday. The Panthers also saw some areas of improvement to focus on in a 42-38 loss to Knoxville.

Junior guard Chase Larson made consecutive 3-pointers to give Knoxville an early 17-11 lead. A jumper in the lane by Cody Crawford gave Creston its final lead at 10-9.

Some effective fullcourt pressure defense and a 3-pointer by Ben Wallace pushed Knoxville to a 14-point lead at 27-13. Creston then put together a 15-5 run to close it to 32-28, and the teams played even the rest of the way as both coaches got good looks from their bench players.

“We just wanted to make sure we mixed things up and gave everybody a little bit of a run,” Creston coach Taylor Phipps said. “Our main goal is not to win these two quarters against Knoxville. We had some guys step up and make good plays, and some guys weren’t ready to play coming off Thanksgiving.”

Knoxville exposed some of Creston’s inexperience while building the 27-13 lead by forcing turnovers.

“Away from the ball we didn’t do enough things to help the guy with the ball,” Phipps said. “I think for us to compete and be in games, we need to be a scrappy, physical bring-your-lunch pail type of team. I thought we didn’t do that especially well tonight.”

Crawford led Creston with nine points, while Cooper McDermott and Kylan Smallwood each had six. Evan Jacobson and Ian Burns each had three. Ryan Kucera, Nick Walsh, Tucker Flynn and Kyle Somers had two each.

Blake McClung and Larson each scored 11 points for Knoxville, which sank five 3-pointers in the half.

The event concluded with a 19-17 defensive battle won by Lenox over West Central Valley.

The Wildcats didn’t have the size to match 6-9 Tiger senior Spencer Brown inside, and fell behind 11-5 after on quarter.

But Lenox’s offense stalled in the second quarter as the Wildcats rallied to take a 17-16 lead with 1:12 remaining. Brown scored inside on an assist by Dawson Tullberg, and Brown converted the three-point play at the free throw line for the final 19-17 margin with 50 seconds left.

West Central Valley missed two shots in the final seconds, including a putback attempt in the lane.

Junior guard Kaleb Anderson made three straight 3-pointers in the first quarter and finished with a team-high 11 points for Lenox. Sam Donaldson and Brown each scored three points.

“We just kind of ran our base offense and tried to work on that,” Lenox coach Jesse Cox said. “We can obviously improve our ball movement and we can push the ball up the floor a little bit more. We did some things better defensively since the Creston scrimmage, but obviously we can move the ball better.”

Lenox hosts Orient-Macksburg on Tuesday.