Marshalltown Community College’s sophomore guard delivered the game-winning basket with 0.7 seconds left, sinking a contested jumpshot over the outstretched arm of DMACC defender Willie Guy to give the Tigers a 90-88 upset victory over the fifth-ranked Bears on Wednesday night at the Student Activity Center.

DMACC’s length-of-the-court pass was deflected as time expired, leaving the Bears (2-1) with their first loss and the Tigers (2-1) with their biggest win in head coach Ryan Flack’s second year at the helm.

“Got the green light, you know they’ve got a lot of trust in me and coach puts his faith in me, he really believes in me, and that shot didn’t even feel nervous,” Lagway said after the game. “I had my whole team behind me on that and that’s all it was, that’s just my team’s confidence with them being behind me on that one.

“There was sort of a play but [Flack] told me it was mine so I took it and I’m just glad I hit it.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - MCC’s Deon’ta Lagway shoots the game-winning jumper over DMACC’s Willie Guy (2) in the closing seconds of Wednesday’s game in Marshalltown.

The Tigers had drawn up essentially the same play as their previous possession, when Lagway earned a pair of free throws he sank to tie the score at 88-all with 19 seconds left. After a quick timeout, MCC’s man-to-man defense met Guy at midcourt and Tiger freshman David Roberts Jr. swatted the ball out of his hands. After a brief scrum for the loose ball, Roberts emerged with possession and was granted a timeout.

Flack put the ball back into Lagway’s hands and he came through in the clutch.

“We had more of a guard lineup, we didn’t have any bigs, so we thought we had to spread the floor especially with (DMACC’s 6-foot-11 center Ryan Schmitt) in the game,” Flack said. “We just wanted to get our guy Deon’ta the playmaker for us so we could get him the ball in the middle of the floor and try to attack. We knew if he couldn’t get a piece of the paint there’s somebody else open and we had some guys that were knocking down shots, so we were hopeful if (Lagway) didn’t get a good look that one of them would.”

And while it was Lagway’s heroics that hit the game-winning shot, he deferred to Roberts Jr. for the play of the game.

“That’s big, that’s exactly what we needed,” Lagway said of Roberts’ steal. “That’s what gave us that extra boost of confidence going into that last shot.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Flack concurred.

“David’s one of our best defenders and that’s really why he’s out on the floor and that’s what he does best,” he said. “And probably the best thing is he likes to defend. He hit a big three down the stretch for us as well, but he likes to defend and he’s got quick hands and we’ll take a little bit of that with him.”

Roberts’ 3-pointer helped MCC regain the lead it had held for the first 31 minutes, 55 seconds, and by as many as 14 points. DMACC used a 14-2 run to overcome an 11-point deficit and take a 69-68 lead with 8:05 to play.

The Tigers got in front again by as many as five points before the Bears countered, going out front 79-78 with 4:06 to go. Roberts’ 3-pointer started the back-and-forth finish down the stretch.

“I’m proud, I thought the guys just played together through it,” Flack said. “It’s a game of runs and when something doesn’t go our way, how do we respond? I thought at times we responded good and at times we didn’t tonight, but when it counted we did and there was always hope.”

Roberts and Lagway were two of MCC’s four double-digit scorers, as Roberts led the way with 19 points and Lagway finished with 14. Leonard Wilson shot 5-of-6 from 3-point range and came away with 17 points, and Ike Sheppard talied 10 points and a team-leading nine rebounds.

The Tigers shot 14-of-27 from 3-point range to help overcome 16 turnovers and a plague of personal fouls, which in the first half resulted in DMACC going 13-of-26 from the free-throw line.

Zach Hobbs led five DMACC scorers in double figures, finishing with 17 points. Mark Bradshaw scored 16 points off the bench, Guy had 15, Christian Haffner had 14 points, and Schmitt ended with 13 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots.

The Bears missed the presence of 6-8 freshman Goanar Biliew, who was knocked out by an ankle sprain less than two minutes into the contest. He was averaging 10 points and 4 rebounds per game going into Wednesday’s Iowa Community College Athletic Conference contest.

MCC is scheduled to go on the road Saturday to face Northeast CC in Norfolk, Neb., with an Iowa Valley Community College District showdown against Ellsworth CC slated for Feb. 3 in Iowa Falls. The Tigers’ next home game is Feb. 6 against No. 14 Iowa Central CC.

Marshalltown CC 90, DMACC 88

DMACC (2-1, 2-1) — Willie Guy 6-15 2-2 15, Christian Haffner 5-7 0-0 14, Goanar Biliew 0-0 0-0 0, Zach Hobbs 5-13 5-7 17, Ryan Schmitt 5-10 3-5 13, Devin Wade-Henderson 3-5 1-3 7, Jean Francois 1-1 4-9 6, Mark Bradshaw 7-16 2-6 16. TOTALS 32-67 17-32 88.

MCC (2-1, 2-1) — Diablo Stewart 3-6 0-0 9, Jaylin Scott 2-5 0-0 6, Deon’ta Lagway 4-13 5-5 14, Leonard Wilson 6-10 0-0 17, Ike Sheppard 4-7 1-2 10, David Roberts Jr. 7-14 4-7 19, Zyan Gilmore 0-0 0-0 0, Lavarius Hampton 2-2 0-0 5, Nuha Sagnia 1-2 0-0 2, Zion Brown-Alvarez 1-2 0-0 2, Rusmir Hamzic 1-5 4-6 6, Aleksander Begovic 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 31-66 14-20 90.

Halftime–MCC 43-35. 3-Point Goals–DMACC 7-19 (Haffner 4-5, Hobbs 2-5, Guy 1-5, Bradshaw 0-4), MCC 14-27 (Wilson 5-6, Stewart 3-5, Scott 2-4, Hampton 1-1, Sheppard 1-3, Roberts Jr. 1-3, Lagway 1-4, Brown-Alvarez 0-1). Rebounds–DMACC 32 (Schmitt 10), MCC 31 (Sheppard 9). Assists–DMACC 11 (Schmitt 3), MCC 14 (Lagway, Roberts Jr. 3). Total Fouls–DMACC 17, MCC 22. Fouled out–none.