Tigers snare first POI title

LENOX — Lenox basketball coach Jesse Cox gathered his team at center court after the Tigers beat Mount Ayr, 60-48, to clinch the outright championship of the Pride of Iowa Conference Tuesday night.

He had to take a moment to talk about how a net-cutting ceremony goes, while a ladder was brought out and placed under the east basket in the Tigers’ gym.

“I had to bring them together, because I’ll guarantee you none of those guys knew how to do it,” said Cox, who graduated from Lenox one year before the Tigers won their last conference title in the Tall Corn in 1990. “Our last conference championship was 25 years ago, so none of these guys were born!”

The Tigers broke away from a one-point lead, 29-28, midway through the third quarter for the 12-point victory to improve to 18-3, and a final mark of 14-2 in the Pride of Iowa. Nodaway Valley and Interstate 35 each finished with three conference defeats.

It marks the first outright championship in any sport for Lenox since joining the Pride of Iowa Conference. The baseball team has shared first place with Martensdale-St. Marys, and the combined Bedford/Lenox wrestling team has won a conference tournament title.

“It means quite a bit to us,” Cox said. “We are a small school in the Pride of Iowa. Us and East Union are the smallest, and it’s a great conference.”

Tough stretch

The achievement wasn’t lost on an exhausted set of Lenox players, who battled in a four-overtime loss at Stanton the night before. In that game, senior center Spencer Brown scored 42 points and tied a state record with 41 rebounds in one game, a record first set in 1970 by Tom Holland of Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

“My legs were pretty tired at the end of the first quarter,” Brown said. “I took a couple of breaks here and there; just had to keep playing. As in football, it’s great to come out on top in your district or conference. There are a lot of teams in our conference, so it means a lot to come out on top.”

Senior Carson Cline was quarterback of Lenox’s district championship football team. He’s the defensive stopper on this basketball squad.

“It feels good to win our whole conference,” Cline said. “It’s always tough in this conference, so it’s really good to win it.”

“Hats off to Jesse and Lenox,” said Mount Ayr coach Bret Ruggles. “We made a nice run there after halftime to get within one. Then Kaleb Anderson hit those threes. That one in the corner that made it a 10-point game (50-40 with 2:31 to play), you could just feel the energy leaving the gym after that one. They have made tough shots at the end to win ballgames this season, and that’s what you do to win conference championships.”

Long wait

Karl Peterson’s 1990 Lenox team was derailed in the substate round, but it was a complete team with the likes of Kurt Stoaks, Travis Dukes, Mitch Siverly, Brent Boyer, Brian Chapman, Chris Parker, Mike Woolley, Andy Maharry and Chris Hogan, father of current Tiger player Colton Hogan.

Cox, likewise, said he and assistant Clint Powell are blessed with all the right pieces to make a complete team.

“Every year we’ve had a good player or two come through here,” Cox said. “But to have five guys like this at the same time, that’s rare. I have a point guard (Dawson Tullberg), a shooter (Anderson), a four-man who scores (Sam Donaldson), a senior leader who’s smart and covers the other team’s best player (Cline) and of course Spencer Brown in the middle makes you pretty good. And we have three guys who come in off the bench who help us.”

One night after his giant 40-40 performance, Brown turned in 24 points, 17 rebounds and two blocked shots against the Raiders. Anderson finished with 14 points and Donaldson, despite battling foul issues, contributed 13 points. Tullberg, who made two clinching drives to the basket from a spread offense in the final minutes, contributed four assists, two steals, seven rebounds and nine points.

“Offensively, when Kaleb gets hot, whether it’s in the first quarter or the fourth quarter, it’s not going to end for awhile,” Brown said.

“Dawson is really good at finishing out games with little drives for layups,” Cline said. “I thought the difference was when we switched up our defense to man. After they got three straight buckets on us we said, let’s go man and win it!”

Strong finish

The Tigers did it with a 25-15 fourth quarter.

Nick Wurster scored 11 points for Mount Ayr (10-11 overall, 6-10 conference) and both Rhett Murphy and Caleb Schnoor tallied nine points. Kyle Dolecheck had a good overall game with eight points and 10 rebounds, while Jed McCreary helped nullify Brown inside at times with seven rebounds and six points.

"We had some foul trouble issues with our post guys," Ruggles said. "We did a nice job coming out after halftime and closing the gap. But it's been the story of our season, that we're getting close but just not hitting that shot to push over the top."

Mount Ayr heads to Greenfield for its Class 1A District 13 opener Feb. 18 against Murray at 6:30 p.m., followed by Nodaway Valley vs. Diagonal or Lamoni at 8 p.m.

Lenox meets either East Union or Orient-Macksburg at home on Feb. 18. The district semifinals are Feb. 23 at Nodaway Valley High School in Greenfield. Central Decatur or Mormon Trail will advance from the top half of that bracket, which includes Lenox, East Union or O-M.

MOUNT AYR (48) — Nick Wurster 4 2-2 11, Rhett Murphy 4 1-2 9, Caleb Schnoor 2 4-4 9, Kyle Dolecheck 3 2-3 8, Jed McCreary 3 0-2 6, Trevor Gooding 1 1-2 3, Tristan Holmes 1 0-0 2. Totals — 18 10-15 48. 3-point goals — 2-14 (N. Wurster 1, Schnoor 1). FG shooting — 18-53 (33.9 percent). Rebounds — 36 (Dolecheck 10, McCreary 7, Holmes 5, Gooding 5, Murphy 5). Assists — 11 (Murphy 4, Schnoor 3, Gooding 2). Steals — 2 (Schnoor 1, Dolecheck 1). Team fouls — 16. Fouled out — None.

LENOX (60) — Spencer Brown 9 6-12 24, Kaleb Anderson 5 0-0 14, Sam Donaldson 6 1-3 13, Dawson Tullberg 3 3-4 9. Totals — 23 10-19 60. 3-point goals — 4-19 (Anderson 4). FG shooting — 23-53 (43.4 percent). Rebounds — 35 (Brown 17, Tullberg 7, Carson Cline 4, Donaldson 3, Anderson 3). Assists — 11 (Tullberg 4, Cline 3, Leevi Marshall 2, Brown 2). Steals — 5 (Tullberg 2, Cline 2, Brown 1). Blocked shots — 3 (Brown 2, Cline 1). Team fouls — 18. Fouled out — None.

Mt. Ayr — 8 19 33 48

Lenox — 15 25 35 60