The Tiger sophomore was outstanding in the NJCAA Division-I Region XI tournament opener, as he had 30 of his team’s 67 points in a 67-66, come-from-behind victory over Northeast Community College at the Student Activity Center on Monday.

Edwards, who came in as the leading scorer in the Iowa Community College Athletic Conference, said he didn’t want to go down in the first round game to the Hawks at home like MCC did a year ago.

“Right before the game I was remembering last year that we played this team twice and came in the playoffs and lost, so I didn’t want that to happen again two years in a row,” he said.

The Tigers (14-14) split their two regular season meeting with Northeast (13-15), so it was no wonder the third meeting was the closest of the bunch.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Marshalltown Community College sophomore Goran Vidovic (5) takes contact from Northeast defender Joel Ufele (43) during the second half of the Tigers’ 67-66 win over the Hawks on Monday in Marshalltown. Vidovic finished the shot and drew a foul for an three-point play.

With under two minutes to go, MCC trailed the Hawks 64-57, but Edwards drilled a three with one minute, 20 seconds left to make it a four-point game. That shot sparked a 10-2 run for the Tigers to finish the game, and Edwards said he and his teammates had to leave it all on the floor to extend their season.

“It was either we win or go home, so we had to make a bunch of big plays to come up with the win,” he said. “That’s all that was going through my mind, whatever I can do to help win.”

Marshalltown head coach Brynjar Brynjarsson isn’t usually one to lay a win on one player’s shoulders, but he said Edwards deserves a huge chunk of the credit for his team’s first playoff win in three years.

“Kelton obviously came up pretty big and made some plays down the stretch, without him I don’t think we would be here as well,” he said. “We scored 67, Kelton had 30, obviously that’s a big reason right there that we found a way to win.”

Edwards had one more amazing shot down the stretch in the closing 10-2 run. After JJ Foster hit the front end of a free-throw trip to make it 64-61, he missed his second shot to the right, but Edwards was there to clean up the glass and put in a basket to cut the lead to just one point.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

The final four points would be scored by his teammates. Goran Vidovic went 1-for-2 at the line after Northeast’s Caleb Rihanek split a pair of free throw on the other end, then Juan Coffi hit the go-ahead shot with 12.8 seconds remaining to put the Tigers up 66-65.

Bassirou Ndiaye would go 1-for-2 from the line with five seconds left to put MCC up by two, and that proved to be enough to win the game.

The Hawks were 2-for-6 from the charity stripe in the final minute of the game, and Brynjarsson said it was both a little luck and some tough play that helped his team to a postseason win.

“With the last two minutes, the way it kind of went the bounces went our way,” he said. “They obviously turned the ball over a couple of times and didn’t make their free throws, but we had to step up and make the plays too to get the lead.”

An old coaching adage goes, ‘you make your own luck,’ and Edwards said the way he and his teammates played down the stretch was why they came away victorious.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“It’s the playoffs, you’ve got to kick the intensity up another level,” he said. “I feel like in the first half we played alright but we weren’t really tough, but in the closing minutes I feel like we finally got to show the tough side of the team that I know we can be.”

Edwards was by far the games leading scorer, as the next best individual point total came from Northeast’s Emmette Page, who finished with 14 in the loss. Page had gone for over 20 points in the first two meetings against MCC, so the Tigers were able to hold him in check relatively well.

Where Brynjarsson said his guys weren’t able to succeed defensively was giving up 13 points each to Moses Byekwaso and Joel Ufele and 12 points to Daniel Akuei.

“We gave up 12 to Akuei and Rihanek had eight, so from that standpoint [Page] didn’t get his, but other people got theirs,” he said. “We need to do a better job of understanding who we are guarding and all that.”

Outside of Edwards on the offensive side, the numbers weren’t pretty but they got the job done. Ndiaye joined Edwards in double figures with 11 points, while Vidovic had 10. Ndiaye also had 11 rebounds for his second straight double-double against the Hawks, and Brynjarsson said he was nearly as key as Edwards.

“Between Kelton and Bass, they made some key plays down the stretch,” Brynjarsson said. “Juan [Coffi], we need to find a way to put the ball in the basket a little better, but at the same time he had key rebounds that kept us in it after some misses. Between Bass and Kelton, those were our two key guys.”

As a team, the Tigers were 20-for-56 from the floor for 35.7 percent. Take away Edwards’ 10-for-20 line, and the rest of the MCC players were 10-for-46 in the game. The Tigers also had 18 turnovers, two more than Northeast, so Brynjarsson wasn’t as thrilled after the game as some people in the stands.

“I didn’t think we were very good when it comes down to it,” he said. “We shot 35 percent and had 18 turnovers, if you would have told me that before the game I’d have told you we lost by 15. We will take it, no doubt about it.”

Free throws were where MCC made up a lot of ground. The Tigers were 22-for-30 from the charity stripe, compared to 12-for-18 for the Hawks.

“They missed free throws, I mean that was really what the difference was,” Brynjarsson said. ”

“They missed some crucial free throws when it came down to it. We missed a shot but found a way to get a rebound and make a couple of free throws.”

Three of those six misses came in the final 10 seconds, when Page went 1-for-4 from the line. Had Page made two of his free throws the game goes into overtime, and three hits means the Tigers would have needed a last-second shot.

During his trips to the line, Page was hounded by a very vocal crowd in the Student Activity Center, where the national-tournament qualifying MCC soccer team was making their presence felt to support their Tiger brothers.

“I thought our student body was fantastic and particularly the soccer guys, they were a big reason why there were misses at the end and so forth,” Brynjarsson said. “Give all the credit to our students, they were big time.”

Even if it was ugly, a win is a win and MCC is now into the second round for the first time since 2016. Ironically it was Northeast who the Tigers last beat in the postseason, and just like 2016 they head to face a highly-touted Indian Hills team in the regional semifinals on Wednesday.

The last time the two teams faced, the Warriors beat the Tigers in Marshalltown, 91-71, on Jan. 16 and again in Ottumwa, 94-82, on Feb. 2. Brynjarsson said his guys have some momentum and knows what it’s going to take to beat the No. 12 team in NJCAA Division I.

“We won, and it doesn’t matter how we won,” Brynjarsson said. “We can just keep on playing and we are hopefully going to take advantage of that and go down to Indian Hills and see what we’ve got and play as hard as we can and go from there.”

Edwards said if he and his teammates can bring the kind of effort and intensity that they had on Monday and make a few more shots, the Warriors are ripe for an upset.

“Both times we played them I feel like we had a strong chance at beating them, and this time I feel like we are definitely going to get the win,” he said. “We just have to play tough like we did the last few minutes the whole game and we will be in a good position.”

MCC travels to Ottumwa to face Indian Hills in the semifinals of the NJCAA Division I Region XI tournament on Wednesday, starting at 7 p.m.

First Round

Monday, Feb. 25

Marshalltown CC 67, Northeast 66

Semifinals

Wednesday, Feb. 27

No. 3 Iowa Western (21-8, 2-6) at No. 2 Southeastern (25-4, 7-1), 7 p.m.

No. 4 Marshalltown CC (15-14) at No. 1 Indian Hills (25-5, 7-1), 7 p.m.

Championship

Saturday, March 2

Semifinal winners, 7 p.m., at higher seed

——

Marshalltown CC 67, Northeast CC 66

At Marshalltown

NORTHEAST CC (13-15) — Emmette Page 4-10 3-7 14, Moses Byekwaso 5-14 1-2 13, Caleb Rihanek 2-6 3-4 8, Daniel Akuei 5-9 0-0 12, Joel Ufele 5-10 3-3 13, Zack James 0-0 0-0 0, Junior Oscar 2-5 2-2 6, Ben Moxness 0-1 0-0 0. TOTALS 23-55 12-18 66.

MARSHALLTOWN CC (15-14) — Juan Coffi 2-11 3-4 7, JJ Foster 1-4 1-2 4, Goran Vidovic 2-4 6-7 10, Bassirou Ndiaye 3-9 5-10 11, Kelton Edwards 10-20 6-6 30, Nick Fleming 0-3 0-0 0, Palmi Thorsson 0-0 0-0 0, Eduardo Lane 2-5 1-1 5. TOTALS 20-56 22-30 67.

Halftime–MCC 34-33. 3-Point Goals–Northeast 8-18 (Page 3-6, Akuei 2-4, Byekwaso 2-5, Rihanek 1-2, Moxness 0-1), MCC 5-17 (Edwards 4-7, Foster 1-4, Coffi 0-2, Vidovic 0-2, Fleming 0-2). Rebounding–Northeast 27 (Ufele 10), MCC 32 (Ndiaye 11). Assists–Northeast 12 (Page 5), MCC 11 (Coffi 5). Total Fouls–Northeast 20, MCC 19. Fouled Out–Byekwaso.

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