Ottumwa -- Sophomore Tyon Grant-Foster set the tone with four 3-pointers in the opening minutes of the game and Indian Hills used that as a springboard to a 95-61 blowout win against Southwestern CC Tuesday night at the Hellyer Center.
Grant-Foster knocked down those four straight threes in the matter of a couple of minutes and later added a 3-point play and a pair of free throws, giving him 17 of IHCC's 26 points in the first eight minutes of action. He had 21 points by halftime, then didn't score in a second half in which he played only four minutes.
After Grant-Foster's early shooting exhibition, Chris Childs made threes on consecutive possessions. Childs came back in the second half and drained a trio of 3-pointers in a row and his five makes from behind the arc put him at 47 for the season, in 13 games.
Indian Hills had only Grant-Foster and Childs (15 points) in double figures, but three players -- Maurice Calloo, Drake Jeffries and JD Muila -- had nine, and 12 of the 13 players who played scored.
The long-range shooting enabled Indian Hills to grab an early double-digit lead and they continued to build on it the rest of the night. The largest margin was 36 points as the Warriors cruised to their 5th win in a row and their 11th in 13 contests overall. They also continued their domination in the series with Southwestern, upping their record against the Spartans to 26-3 since 1986, and a perfect 18-0 at the Hellyer Center.
The IHCC defense held another opponent to a tough shooting night. SWCC wound up at 33 percent. The Warriors field-goal percentage defense is in the top five nationally.
Southwestern put four players in double figures. Donzell Johnson and Creshaun Brown each had 14, Akeen Woods 13 and James Kelley 11, as the Spartans fall to 5-9.
Indian Hills has two more tests before the first half of the season comes to a close, this Friday and Saturday in the HyVee Classic. First up is Missouri State-West Plains on Friday night at 7:00.
INDIAN HILLS 95, SOUTHWESTERN 61
INDIAN HILLS (11-2)
Chris Payton 3 1-1 7, Maurice Calloo 4 0-1 9, Tyrese Nickelson 0 2-2 2, Loseni Kamara 2 0-0 6, Chris Childs 5 0-0 15, Malique Jacobs 2 3-3 7, Tyon Grant-Foster 6 5-7 21, Drake Jeffries 2 4-4 9, JD Muila 3 3-9 9, Dedoch Chan 1 0-0 2, Theo Bourgeois 0 0-0 0, Ben Lyon 1 0-0 2, Samba Kane 3 0-0 6 Team 32 18-27 95
SOUTHWESTERN (5-9)
James Kelley 3 4-6 11, Akeen Woods 3 6-9 13, Donzell Johnson 5 1-2 14, Creshaun Brown 5 0-0 14, Demetrius Johnson 0 0-0 0, Sebastian Zehnder 2 0-1 5, Jimmie Richardson 0 0-0 0, Kyle Hawthorne 1 1-2 4, Charles Johnson 0 0-0 0, Manyiel Wugol 0 0-0 0 Team 19 12-19 61
Halftime score: Indian Hills 41, Southwestern 23; Three-point field goals: IHCC 13 (Childs 5, Grant-Foster 4, Kamara 2, Calloo 1, Jeffries 1), SWCC 11 (Brown 4, D. Johnson 3, Kelley 1, Woods 1, Zehnder 1, Hawthorne 1)