Mount Ayr holds off Wolverines in POI opener

A showdown between two girls basketball teams expected to contend for the top of the Pride of Iowa Conference swung Mount Ayr’s way last Tuesday.

The Raiderettes answered every Nodaway Valley run and opened league play with a 58-48 road win.

“I felt like Mount Ayr looked composed and like a bunch of veterans,” Wolverines head coach Brian Eisbach said. “I felt like we had that first chance to get out in front of the home crowd — Mount Ayr had a game under their belt. We weren’t as clean and crisp, but that’s to be expected in the first few games.”

Despite the setback, Nodaway Valley has 20 regular-season games ahead to fine-tune its play.

Mount Ayr rebounded well early and capitalized on missed NV shots to take control. The Raiderettes led 18-11 after one quarter, helped by nine points from Izzy Gilbertson. Emma Boswell and Abby Nelson combined for eight of the Wolverines’ first-quarter points.

Nodaway Valley trailed by 12 late in the second before senior Izzy Eisbach knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 30-21 at halftime.

Mount Ayr maintained a 45-39 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.

“I felt we got out-hustled at times and out-rebounded a lot of the time, and that allowed them to get a lot of first-quarter runouts on us. That ended up being the difference,” Eisbach said. “They ended up winning by 10, and of their 30 halftime points, probably 18 to 20 of them were off layups in transition.”

Mount Ayr opened the fourth with a 5-0 spurt, but the Wolverines answered. Freshman Sofie Rardin hit a 3-pointer and Boswell scored inside to trim the margin to six with 4:30 to play.

The Raiderettes were strong attacking the rim in the closing minutes, rebuilding the lead to 10.

“We had some bright spots. We had some young kids come in off the bench who took advantage of the moment,” Eisbach said. “We had some good looks, but shots just weren’t falling. Hats off to Mount Ayr — they were ready and we’ll see them again in January, and we’ll have to be ready.”

Eisbach posted a double-double with 22 points, 10 rebounds, seven steals and two assists for NV. Boswell finished one point shy of her own double-double with nine points, 13 rebounds, four steals and three blocks. Nelson added eight points and eight rebounds.

The Wolverines shot just 4% from 3-point range, 24.6% from the field and 65% at the line. They committed 21 turnovers.

“I wanted us to hit the roller more out of our ball-screen continuity offense. I felt like we settled for some shots when we maybe had plenty of shot clock left,” Eisbach said. “I wanted to see us work on some pressure, and I didn’t feel we did very well pressuring the ball most of the time. I do feel when we switched to a zone we got a lot of deflections and ball-hawked it a little bit. That allowed us to get out in transition a little and stay in it.”

Gilbertson scored 21 and junior Makel Jones added 10 for Mount Ayr.

Nodaway Valley (0-1) was scheduled to play Tuesday at Lenox.

“At the end of the day, we’re still working on getting connected,” Eisbach said. “The good news is we’ve got 20 regular-season games left to figure that out. We continue to work at it, stay positive. There were some good things.”