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Tigers hit high note on Hawks

Marshalltown CC earns playoff home game by beating Northeast, 76-62

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - Marshalltown Community College guard Juan Coffi (1) shoots and is fouled by Northeast’s Joel Ufele (43) during the second half of Friday’s game at the Student Activity Center. Coffi had eight points, 11 rebounds and six assists as the Tigers won 76-62.

It took a simple halftime reminder by head coach Brynjar Brynjarsson for the Marshalltown Community College men’s basketball team to find a way to get into rhythm.

Once there, the Tigers stayed on key for the remainder.

MCC opened the second half on a 9-0 scoring run and used another nine-point surge to pull away from Northeast CC for a 76-62 victory in Friday’s Iowa Community College Athletic Conference finale for both teams.

The win clinched a home game in Monday’s opening round of the Region XI Tournament against this same Northeast squad thanks to a strengh-of-schedule tiebreaker system that slotted the Tigers (14-14, 2-6) ahead of the Hawks (13-15, 2-6).

The head-to-head comparison became moot after Marshalltown avenged a 69-65 loss in Norfolk, Neb., with Friday’s double-digit win.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - Marshalltown Community College’s Nick Fleming, left, shoots over Northeast defender Ben Moxness during the first half of Friday’s game at MCC.

“I would like to say [home court] matters a lot, however, in the last couple of years we’ve given it away so whatever we’ve got in our head about this game, this game’s over and done with,” said Brynjarsson. “Northeast will be ready, so we’ve got to play and play tough and defend the way we did in the second half.

“On Monday, every basket matters, every block-out matters, how we defend the pick and roll matters.”

In the first four minutes of the second half, it was all of those things that mattered to earn that home-court playoff game. Marshalltown forced two turnovers on Northeast’s first five possessions and capitalized with a 9-0 surge that broke open a two-point game. Four different players scored in the series, with Goran Vidovic leading the charge with a 3-pointer and a pair of assists during the spurt.

Kelton Edwards, who finished with a team-leading 17 points, scored six-straight for the Tigers and nine of 13 during the deciding run later in the second half.

MCC maintained its momentum with a solid effort on the other end of the court as well, defending Northeast’s pick-and-roll offense and rebounding the Hawks’ misses.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Northeast shot 8-for-28 (28.6 percent) from the field in the second half while MCC was 16-for-25 (45.7 percent) after the intermission, leading to a 12-point advantage for the Tigers after clinging to a two-point lead at halftime.

“I told the guys at halftime I didn’t think we had a whole lot of rhythm, we didn’t have a great flow to us,” said Brynjarsson. “We struggled to score a little bit and we were hanging our heads. We weren’t taking horrible shots, let’s just find a way to score the ball and call it a day.

“The big difference in the second half is we outrebounded them by 11. … And we really just found a way to contest shots better and the biggest thing was making sure we blocked out. I felt that was the difference.”

The Tigers owned a 45-35 advantage in rebounding and limited their turnovers to only five per half. Northeast cashed those 10 miscues in for 17 points, however, but the Hawks never recovered after falling behind by double figures.

“Goran made a couple 3s for us and that kind of extended the lead at crucial times, and Kelton came up big, Juan [Coffi] came up with a big putback and had 11 rebounds,” Brynjarsson said. “We’ve just got to dig in here and get ready for Monday because we turn around and are playing them again.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Emmette Page posted a game-high 25 points to lead Northeast, and Moses Byekwaso added 16 points in spite of foul trouble.

Vidovic made five 3-pointers and finished with 16 points, JJ Foster added 14 points, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals, and Bassirou Ndiaye tallied a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Ndiaye was the first MCC starter sent to the bench after struggling to defend as Brynjarsson had asked against the pick-and-roll, but he figured it out in the second half and made a greater impact on both ends of the court as a result. Northeast managed only 27 points in the second half.

“Bass got 10 rebounds and played hard, we just have to be a little bit smarter about a few things,” said Brynjarsson.

Coffi contributed eight points, six assists and a game-high 11 rebounds, while Eduardo Lane tallied six points and seven boards off the bench in place of Ndiaye.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

The rubber match on Monday is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. at the Student Activity Center. The Tigers have hosted the first-round game each of the last three seasons but have lost the last two, falling to Southeastern in 2017 and Northeast in 2018.

Marshalltown CC 76, Northeast CC 62

NORTHEAST (13-15, 2-6) — Emmette Page 8-22 6-6 25, Moses Byekwaso 5-11 4-4 16, Caleb Rihanek 3-7 0-0 6, Daniel Akuei 1-6 0-0 2, Joel Ufele 3-8 0-2 6, Zack James 0-1 0-0 0, Junior Oscar 1-4 0-0 2, Ben Moxness 0-1 0-0 0, Luke Rollman 2-2 1-1 5. TOTALS 23-62 11-13 62.

MARSHALLTOWN CC (14-14, 2-6) — Juan Coffi 3-13 2-6 8, JJ Foster 5-9 2-2 14, Goran Vidovic 5-10 1-2 16, Bassirou Ndiaye 6-13 1-1 13, Kelton Edwards 6-17 5-5 17, Nick Fleming 0-1 2-2 2, Eduardo Lane 3-7 0-0 6. TOTALS 28-70 13-18 76.

Halftime–MCC 37-35. 3-Point Goals–Northeast 5-25 (Page 3-11, Byekwaso 2-6, James 0-1, Oscar 0-1, Moxness 0-1, Akuei 0-2, Rihanek 0-3), MCC 7-19 (Vidovic 5-10, Foster 2-3, Coffi 0-1, Fleming 0-1). Rebounds–Northeast 35 (Akuei 10), MCC 45 (Coffi 11, Ndiaye 10). Assists–Northeast 7 (Akuei 3), MCC 16 (Coffi, Foster 6). Total Fouls–Northeast 16, MCC 15. Fouled Out–none.

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