The Marshalltown boys’ basketball team has progressed to the point that assistant coach Brynjar Brynjarsson can see the spot on the horizon where he can sit idly by and watch the Bobcats do their thing.

He didn’t have that luxury on Tuesday night, but the Bobcats made it easy on him anyway.

Marshalltown scored its season-high, allowed its season-low, committed just 11 turnovers and took down Des Moines Hoover 56-30 with head coach Michael Appel away from the team due to a family emergency.

Brynjarsson was happy to report that Appel’s 3-year-old son Gus was on the road to recovery after having been LifeFlighted to Des Moines earlier in the day. It far outweighed the result of the basketball game, Brynjarsson said, but he was glad to see the Bobcats perform well without their head coach on the sideline.

“Gus is doing well and Michael and [his wife] Kelsey are doing well, that’s really all that matters,” Brynjarsson said. “It was just one of those flukes and you know, I’m happy to step in, but at the same time, like I told the kids before the game, it doesn’t matter if we have a coach or not, we should get to the point where we can coach ourselves and know what to do at this point.”

What the Bobcats (3-1) did on this night was play efficient basketball, give great effort and attention on defense, and play their respective roles.

“We’re getting better and better every day,” Brynjarsson said. “You know, the role that everybody has, we’re starting to buy in to that.

“If we can just keep grinding it out in practice and figuring it out with how we’re guarding and how hard we’ve got to play, I like this group from a standpoint of the effort and what they give us every day.”

Senior forward Jacob Hayes overcame a bout with foul trouble to lead Marshalltown in scoring with 16 points despite sitting for most of the third quarter with three fouls. Tasked with guarding Hoover’s top scorer Isaac Fandeh, Hayes battled throughout adversity to score inside and out. He made his first two 3-pointers of the young season, going 6-for-10 from the field and 2-for-2 at the free-throw line.

Kyle Smith sank three 3-pointers on his way to 13 points, Drake Gersema got nine points and four steals, while Gavin Misek and Damian Segovia added seven points each.

Smith led the team with nine rebounds while Talon Halsted added four boards off the bench.

“The confidence of Damian and Larrs (Schoenfelder), it’s just outstanding,” Brynjarsson said. “Talon gave us the greatest minutes that he’s given us so far this season, in my opinion. I told him outside of Tyler’s three, he was the MVP of the game.”

MHS senior Tyler Dorothy checked in for the final two minutes and got the last points of the game, a 3-pointer from the corner in front of the Bobcats’ blacked-out student section. It marked Dorothy’s first career points in varsity play.

It also capped Marshalltown’s 13-2 fourth-quarter advantage that took the team’s lead on the scoreboard from 15 to 26. Des Moines Hoover (0-3) committed nine of their 17 turnovers in the final period as the Bobcats pulled away far enough to sit all their starters ahead of Friday’s Iowa Alliance Conference North Division opener against Mason City.

“We have just been focusing on one game at a time,” Brynjarsson said. “I thought we did a really good job last week with three games that it was just Lincoln, then it was Newton, and then it was East. And I think that’s our approach, whether it’s a conference game or not, it’s just the next game that we’ve got to play.”

Fandeh scored right at his average of 12 points to lead Hoover, while JaVahcy Brooks added seven points in the loss.

The Bobcats are back at home on Friday to face Mason City at 7:45 p.m.

Marshalltown 56, Des Moines Hoover 30

DM HOOVER (0-3) — Samuel Zay Zay 0 0-0 0, Diyon Berry 1 0-0 2, JaVahcy Brooks 3 1-1 7, Brandon Harrell 1 1-2 3, Isaac Fandeh 4 3-7 12, Muize Musa 1 0-0 3, David Gbeaday 0 0-0 0, Jamari Jefferson 0 0-0 0, Godwin Fode 1 0-0 3, Josh Bohlender 0 0-0 0, Djuan McCree Jr. 0 0-0 0, Adam Mohamed 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 11 5-10 30.

MARSHALLTOWN (3-1) — Drake Gersema 3 3-7 9, Kyle Smith 5 0-0 13, Damian Segovia 3 0-0 7, Jacob Hayes 6 2-2 16, Larrs Schoenfelder 0 1-2 1, Gavin Misek 3 1-3 7, Hunter Fors 0 0-0 0, Talon Halsted 0 0-0 0, Tyler Dorothy 1 0-0 3, Oliver Young 0 0-0 0, Garrett Thede 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 21 7-14 56.

HOOVER 10 7 11 2 — 30

MHS 14 16 13 13 — 56

3-Point Goals–Hoover 3 (Musa, Gode, Fandeh), MHS 7 (Smith 3, Hayes 2, Segovia, Dorothy). Team Fouls–Hoover 12, MHS 17. Fouled Out–none.