PHOTO BY BRITT KUDLA/FORT DODGE MESSENGER - Marshalltown’s Talon Halsted blocks a shot by Brody Maehl of Fort Dodge during Tuesday’s Iowa Alliance Conference basketball game in Fort Dodge.

FORT DODGE — The Marshalltown boys’ basketball team went on the road shorthanded, and they came back empty-handed.

The Bobcats led by seven points in the fourth quarter but didn’t make a field goal over the final four minutes and fell 43-42 to Fort Dodge in Tuesday’s Iowa Alliance Conference clash.

Marshalltown (9-6, 4-2) beat the Dodgers by 20 points in their first meeting this season at the Roundhouse in which sophomore guard Gavin Misek scored a career-high 21 points. Misek sat out Tuesday’s return trip with an ankle sprain, and the math added up to a one-point loss.

Freshman forward Larrs Schoenfelder also was sidelined by a shoulder injury, shortening the Bobcats’ bench even farther.

The win snapped an 11-game losing streak for Fort Dodge (2-13, 1-5), which hadn’t won a conference game yet this season.

“We’ve gotta put this one behind us, and understand we can’t take games for granted,” said MHS head coach Michael Appel. “We’ve got six games left. Are we gonna let this loss define us or are we gonna respond and bounce back?

“I think they’re a resilient group, they consistently work hard in practice, so that’s our choice right there is to stick with it, fix a lot of things both offensively and defensively to prepare and get back to ourselves. We were just very out of character tonight.”

Hayden Zuspann scored a game-high 16 points for the Dodgers, making four 3-pointers, and Brody Maehl scored nine of his 14 points before halftime.

“I think we looked past them and we weren’t prepared to play and that falls on me and the coaching staff,” said Appel. “We’ve gotta do a better job of understand we can’t just roll the ball out in any game or that’ll happen.

“This is by far our worst output as far as effort of the season, so we’ve just gotta do better than that.”

Drake Gersema and Jacob Hayes had 15 points apiece to lead Marshalltown in defeat. Kyle Smith made three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points. Gersema, Smith and Jamison Niehouse had six rebounds apiece, and Gersema tallied four assists and two blocked shots.

MHS led 40-33 with four minutes to play before Fort Dodge started its comeback, including a Zuspann 3-pointer. The Dodgers tied it up before Taevon Feeley’s backdoor layup with 1:23 left put them in front 42-40.

Niehouse’s 1-of-2 free throw trip got MHS to within one, but Reggie Pederson made 1-of-2 on the other end with 30 seconds left. Gersema got to the line with 2.5 seconds left but missed the second freebie, and Pederson pulled the rebound away from Niehouse to protect the one-point victory.

Marshalltown goes back out on the road Friday with a trip to Waterloo East.