Dana Stokes, who hadn’t attempted a shot since early in the second quarter, calmly sank a pair of free throws with 7.8 seconds remaining to seal the Tigers’ 68-64 victory over DMACC in the third of Friday’s four games of MCC’s Emerson Classic.

Stokes scored eight points in a fast-breaking first quarter for MCC, after which the Tigers led 23-22. But her absence helped DMACC (2-4) gain momentum in the second period, partially sparked by Stokes’ third personal foul and subsequent technical foul.

Saddled to the bench for the rest of the second, all of the third and most of the fourth quarters, Stokes watched as her teammates regained control and pulled ahead by as many as 11 points in the final period.

“That was very tough because I’m not used to doing that,” Stokes said of watching from the sidelines. “I’m always on the floor, but it was a lot of players that stepped up so I was real proud of them. It was tough though.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Even without one of the protagonists of its newly-initiated fast-break attack, Marshalltown (2-5) outscored the visiting Bears 13-8 in the third quarter and took a 60-49 lead after back-to-back 3-pointers by Carla Collado and Eva Carballo two minutes into the fourth frame.

“That shows that we are growing, we’re learning each others’ abilities, people are stepping up and everybody is looking to score now,” Stokes said. “It’s incredible.”

DMACC called a timeout with 5 minutes, 13 seconds remaining in the game and got a layup on its ensuing possession, which prompted Stokes’ return to the lineup. Her insertion resulted in immediate results with an assist on Rachelle Smith’s run-out layup, and the two teams traded 3-pointers to make it 65-54 Tigers with three minutes to go.

The Bears countered with the next eight points before Carballo cashed in 1-of-2 free throws to make it a four-point game with 45 seconds left, but DMACC answered quickly with a layup for Taelor Lessmeier with 35 seconds showing.

The Tigers took a timeout to establish their game plan for the last possession and managed to play keep-away for 22 seconds before DMACC fouled Stokes with 7.8 ticks left on the clock. The sophomore guard from Chicago sank both freebies to make it a two-possession game, effectively cinching the win for MCC.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

“I’m most proud of them for being composed while Dana was sitting on the bench, because we need that if she or anybody gets in foul trouble and sits on the bench, we need someone to pick that up and I thought our bench came in in spotty situations and did a good job,” said MCC head coach Steve Garber. “That’s what it takes, it takes little step-ups by players coming off the bench here and there to add to our success and I thought they did that tonight.”

Carballo served as the floor general for the Tigers’ newfound fast-break attack and finished with a stat-stuffer of a night: game-highs of 19 points, nine rebounds, six assists and six steals against only two turnovers. She shot 7-of-12 from the floor, including 3-of-3 on 3-pointers, and was 2-of-4 at the free-throw line.

Laurin Lyons tallied 16 points and six rebounds, while Stokes and Nuria Castillo both had 10 points. The Tigers shot 9-of-27 from 3-point range while DMACC struggled from distance, going 5-for-27 with a dismal 0-for-10 showing in the third quarter when MCC put distance between itself and the Bears.

“I thought we got out and just went at the start to create that tempo that we want, that we need in order to score more points and I think that’s what we did very well,” Garber said. “It’s a work-in-progress. We’re finding out who we are, what style we need to play in order to compete, and I was extremely proud of the third quarter of our players playing without Dana Stokes. She’s our high scorer … and without her we still maintained some scoring.

“That’s been our struggle all last year and this year to start with, and it’s probably a little bit about the style, so we’re kind of changing our style a little bit even though our numbers aren’t high. We’ll just have to be in better shape as far as getting up and down the court a little bit more.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

The Tigers’ 68 points are the second-most they’ve scored this season, and Stokes is all for the commitment to change.

“I think that works best for our team,” she said. “In the beginning of the season we’d been doing everything slow, and even though we have a short bench it’s a lot of people with speed and the ability to get up and down the court. So when we finally tried it and it worked for us, we all said this is something we need to stick with.”

The real test, Garber said, will come tonight when the Tigers try and run in back-to-back games. MCC meets Iowa Lakes (3-2) in today’s 5 p.m. game on the second day of the Emerson Classic.

“We’re going to enjoy tonight and then prepare for Iowa Lakes because they’re a tough team,” Garber said. “Now it’s going to be back-to-back. We’ve already played two times back-to-back [days] and not very well at all the second game, so we’ll see how that transpires the second night.

“Our conditioning has stepped up a little bit of recent and that’s the thing I did notice was our players having a lot more energy throughout the entire game and we spent some time on conditioning so that was a good response.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

In two previous instances this season of playing on consecutive days, the Tigers lost the second games by 46 and 43 points.

“It’s going to be tough but we’ve got to push through,” Stokes said. “A lot of stretching, a lot of resting. We’ll push through it.”

Emerson Classic

At Marshalltown Community College

Friday’s Scores

WOMEN

Iowa Lakes 74, Central (Neb.) 40

Marshalltown CC 68, DMACC 64

MEN

Iowa Lakes 93, Independence (Kan.) 87

Marshalltown CC 76, John Wood (Ill.) 74

Saturday’s Games

WOMEN

1 p.m. — DMACC vs. Central (Neb.)

5 p.m. — MCC vs. Iowa Lakes

MEN

3 p.m. — Iowa Lakes vs. John Wood

7 p.m. — MCC vs. Independence (Kan.)

——

WOMEN

Marshalltown CC 68, DMACC 64

DMACC (2-4) — Gatton 2-13 1-3 5, Mena 1-4 1-1 3, McKinney 1-6 0-0 2, Lessmeier 7-9 2-3 17, Courtney 3-4 2-4 8, Evans 1-1 0-0 3, Powell 3-6 3-4 10, Schaa 1-2 0-0 2, Scott 2-4 0-0 4, Raymond 0-3 0-0 0, Mace 4-8 0-0 10, Brewster 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 25-60 9-15 64.

MCC (2-5) — Stokes 3-7 4-4 10, Lyons 4-11 5-8 16, Castillo 3-8 2-2 10, Zaragoza 1-7 2-2 4, Carballo 7-12 2-4 19, van Malsen 1-3 0-0 2, R. Smith 2-7 0-0 4, Collado 1-4 0-0 3, D. Smith 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 22-59 15-20 68.

DMACC 22 17 8 17 — 64

MCC 23 16 13 16 — 68

3-Point Goals–DMACC 5-27 (Mace 2-4, Evans 1-1, Powell 1-2, Schaa 0-1, Mena 0-2, SCott 0-2, Raymond 0-3, McKinney 0-4, Gatton 0-7); MCC 9-27 (Carballo 3-3, Lyons 3-6, Castillo 2-6, Collado 1-4, Zaragoza 0-1, Stokes 0-3, R. Smith 0-3). Rebounds–DMACC 24 (Courtney 7); MCC 33 (Carballo 9). Assists–DMACC 8 (Lessmeier 3); MCC 11 (Carballo 6). Total Fouls–DMACC 16, MCC 15. Fouled Out–none. Technical Foul–Stokes.

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