WEST DES MOINES — Drew Daniel had a double-double and the Class 4A No. 7 Dowling Catholic boys’ basketball team toppled Marshalltown 64-23 in Tuesday’s cross-CIML contest.

Daniel led three Dowling scorers in double figures, going for 16 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Maroons (4-1) to their fourth-straight victory. Ryan Riggs had 14 points and eight rebounds, and Matt Riedl added 11 points for host Dowling.

“Their physicality and what they do make it really hard for us, and we knew that was going to be the case going in,” said Marshalltown head coach Michael Appel. “We had a gameplan but we didn’t execute that greatly. They’re trying to attack the rim so much, which we didn’t do a great job of guarding against the penetration, and the floodgates opened from there.”

Dowling jumped out to an 18-4 lead after the first quarter against the Bobcats (2-4) and never looked back, winning all four quarters while holding Marshalltown to 10 points or fewer in each of them.

“They’re big, they’re long, they’re skilled, they handle the ball — there’s not one guy you can help off of,” said Appel. “They offensive rebound well and get second-chance points, and we couldn’t make anything. We got open looks but we just couldn’t knock them down.

“The right guys were shooting them and they were good shots, but when it’s not working you’ve got to move on and try something different. The biggest thing was we’d miss and we wouldn’t sprint back [on defense], we took it for granted and those are things we’ve got to do every single time.”

Marshalltown’s official statistics were unavailable as of press time.

The Bobcats play six of their next seven games at home, closing the pre-holiday portion of their schedule with Friday’s game against Fort Dodge at the Roundhouse.

“Our guys need to understand [Dowling’s] a top-five team in the state,” Appel said. “They’re the best team that we’ve played thus far, them or Johnston, and we’ve got to come out with a little bit more of a mentality that we’re going to stop them and we’re going to do this and really buy into what we’re saying to them.

“Now we’ve got to move on and focus on Fort Dodge and move on from this game.”