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Urbandale eases past Bobcats

T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING - Marshalltown junior guard Sara Huffman (4) drives toward the basket past Urbandale defender Alayna Schipper during the first half of Friday’s basketball game at the Roundhouse. Urbandale beat the host Bobcats, 48-13.

As soon as tip-off occurred Friday night in the MHS Roundhouse, the Marshalltown girls’ basketball team found itself with backs against the wall.

Scoring nearly immediately after the tip and starting out on a 17-0 run in the first five minutes of play, the J-Hawks were all over MHS on the way to a 48-13 final. MHS drops to 0-4 on the season.

Urbandale implemented a three-quarter court press that heavily disrupted Marshalltown’s offense and caused a number of turnovers in the first quarter. These turnovers directly led to fast-break chances for the J-Hawks.

Many times Friday night it felt like the Bobcats were passing to where they expected the player to be instead of where their teammate was, and those miscommunications are something head coach Brian Murphy said needs to be ironed out.

“One of the signs of our youth is that it feels like right now we have to try things before recognizing they’re not going to work,” Murphy said. “We don’t see a lot of teams that sit in a 1-3-1 zone, and with the game last night we didn’t have much time to prep anything specific so we’re asking the girls to read and react. When you’ve got inexperience and a lot of these girls haven’t played together, you expect somebody to cut and they go backdoor instead. Some of that’s just going to be experience and chemistry.”

T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING - Marshalltown junior guard Anistyn Borsch, left, has her path to the basket cut off by Urbandale’s Dharma Woodruff (24) during the first half of Friday’s game at the Roundhouse.

Scoring only three points in the first quarter, the Bobcats were down 33-7 at the break. After the 23-point first quarter there was better defensive solidity and more empty trips for the visitors, and Marshalltown stopped allowing free runs at the basket. Urbandale scored 25 points in the second, third and fourth quarters combined after the hot start.

This is a rare game for the Bobcats this year — a matchup with CIML opposition. Murphy said it was an important game in part because strong teams like Urbandale can expose areas in need of improvement.

“Opponents like this are important,” Murphy said. “They will highlight the areas we need to work on. The irony is, I thought we played better tonight against a tougher opponent tonight than we did against Newton last night.

“I thought tonight, despite getting blown off a little bit, we kept responding because we knew it was a tough opponent so we just kept battling.”

Kinsley Bowie, Sara Huffman and Anistyn Borsch each hit one 3-pointer to lead the Bobcats in scoring. Aubrie Tejada made a basket and finished with two, while Amaya Moore and Sydney Kapayou each made one free throw.

Up next for the youthful Bobcats is a Tuesday game at home against Des Moines North, with tip-off scheduled for 6:15 p.m.

Urbandale 48, Marshalltown 13

URBANDALE (3-1) — Devon Carlile 3 0-0 8, Maddy Stutler 5 1-2 12, Maria Long 2 0-0 4, Dharma Woodruff 1 0-0 2, Bri Tigges 3 0-2 6, Ela Tabakovic 2 1-2 5, Alexandra King 0 0-0 0, Olivia Cannon 0 0-0 0, Alayna Schipper 1 0-0 3, Lauren Salmon 1 0-0 3, Reese Devooght 1 0-0 2, Delaney Peterson 2 0-0 5. TOTALS 20 2-6 48.

MARSHALLTOWN (0-4) — Sara Huffman 1 0-0 3, Aubrie Tejada 1 0-0 2, Anistyn Borsch 1 0-0 3, Amaya Moore 0 1-2 1, Sydney Kapayou 0 1-2 1, Kinsley Bowie 1 0-0 3, Millie Heitmann 0 0-0 0, Ellie Hughes 0 0-0 0, Jorja Janssen 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 4 2-4 13.

URBANDALE 23 10 12 3 — 48

MHS 3 4 5 1 — 13

3-Point Goals–Urbandale 6 (Carlile 2, Stutler, Tigges, Schipper, Salmon), MHS 3 (Huffman, Borsch, Bowie). Total Fouls–Urbandale 8, MHS 10. Fouled Out–none.

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