The Indianola girls basketball team held the Grinnell Tigers scoreless for over 7 minutes in the fourth quarter to pick up a comeback Little Hawkeye Conference win Tuesday evening 55-51, while the boys played a close game with the Tigers but won 65-57 to complete the sweep in a pair of games heard live on 94.3 KNIA.
The #14 in class 5A Indians girls played a back and forth contest with the Tigers, trailing at the end of the first quarter 14-11 and most of the second quarter, but made a late run to take a 25-24 lead into the halftime break. The third quarter was all Grinnell however, as they dominated leading to a 45-38 deficit for Indianola. The defense clamped down in the fourth however, and didn’t allow a single point for the Tigers until 24.7 seconds remained in the contest, as the Indians slowly made their way back into the game to take a lead to finish off the win. Kendall Clatt led the way with 21 points and 11 rebounds.
It was a dogfight in the Indianola boys game, with Grinnell controlling the pace and despite the Indians making 13 three-point baskets, they did not shoot the ball well. The Indians held on to leads at the end of the first 18-17, halftime 32-25, and the third quarter 48-45, but could never wrestle full control away from the Tigers and never got the lead higher than 10. Head coach Brett Watson tells KNIA Sports his team found a way to win.
“What I told the guys afterwards, was that was an ugly win, but we’ll take that any day. When you are playing in the Little Hawkeye Conference, against a really well-coached team who created a lot of mismatches against us especially down low. We didn’t play our best basketball, give Grinnell a lot of credit for that. But for us to win ugly with our young and inexperienced group, I’ll take that.”
Caden Rehmeier dropped six-three point baskets and scored 24 overall to lead the way, while Cooper Nailor had 15. The Indians girls have now won eight in a row for an 8-1 record, with the boys improving to 5-3, and both teams will next play on Friday hosting Oskaloosa.