ESTHERVILLE, IA – Save your best for last. Peak at the right time. Play your best at the end of the season.
Pick any cliché' you would like, and any of them would be appropriate after No. 10-rated Indian Hills put together arguably its best effort of the season in earning an 84-67 ICCAC road victory over Iowa Lakes Saturday afternoon at Laker Gymnasium.
You won't get any argument from IHCC Head Coach Hank Plona.
"That's about as good of basketball as we've played all year right there," said Plona after his Warriors notched their tenth consecutive victory. "It would not surprise me one bit if Iowa Lakes makes a run in the national tournament at their level. I could pick apart a few things, but man, I thought everybody contributed, and I thought we played very, very well."
The Warriors locked up the outright ICCAC regular season championship with the win as IHCC has a two-game lead over DMACC with just Wednesday's finale' with Kirkwood remaining, and if Saturday's effort was any indication, Plona has his team poised for a postseason run.
"I thought today for 40 minutes, we had a complete team effort on both ends of the floor," Plona added. "That's what basketball is about, a big team effort."
The game stood in stark contrast to the teams' previous meeting two weeks ago at the Hellyer Center, a contest Plona was clearly unsatisfied by, despite his squad cracking the 100-point barrier and winning by nine. Whatever the Warriors were missing on that day, has been found, because Plona found little to be complain about afterwards.
"We executed our game plan defensively," Plona explained. "We took away their shooters, rebounded against the best rebounding team in the league, obviously shot the ball well, and played with confidence. I think that was the best team effort that we've had all year right there."
Indian Hills (18-2) came into Saturday's contest hoping to slow Lakers' guards Ryan Hall and Dillon Carlson, who led Iowa Lakes with 18 and 17 points, respectively in the March 13 meeting at the Hellyer Center. All five starters for ILCC average in double figures, so Plona played a game of pick your poison, and he appeared to have chosen correctly.
"Their guys up front are big, strong, physical guys that are going to get to the rim no matter what," Plona explained. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not the biggest, strongest, most physical team in the world, so I figured number 10 (Xzavier Jones) and 23 (Kevin Cook) were going to get theirs, but we could try to take out their shooters."
The plan was effective, as Hall and Carlson combined to shoot 0-for-11 from the field, and while Jones and Cook reached double figures, the pair combined to shoot 12-for-33 (36 percent).
"Even though their bigs got shots, they were basically all twos," Plona said. "So, our guards did a great job on their shooters. Tyrese Nickelson, Braxton Bayless, Trey Harris, Taj Anderson, and Levar Williams took those guards away. And then Curtis Jones, Tye Freeman and Chris Payton held those other two guys to 12-for-33 and did a great job defending and rebounding."
IHCC never trailed in the contest. Iowa Lakes drew even at 15-15 with the Warriors on a Cook lay in with 9:25 remaining in the first half, but IHCC would go on a 9-0 run on back-to-back-to-back trifectas from Jones, Anderson and Freeman to make it 24-15. The Warriors led by ten at the break at 39-29 and kept a double-digit lead for most of the second stanza.
"Sometimes you're really proud of a win because you know you fight through the ups and downs of game and get the win," Plona said. "But this was different. This one was as good of basketball as this team has ever played."
It looked like the Lakers' fortunes might be turning around with 16:30 left as a Caleb Johnson 3-pointer banked in off glass to make it just a seven point Warrior lead at 43-36, but a 14-4 IHCC run that was punctuated by three Jones triples pushed back the hosts to a 17-point deficit at 57-40 with 10 minutes left.
A Keshawn Pegues lay in with 2:52 remaining brought Iowa Lakes back to 72-62, but Payton reeled off six points in combination with two from the line from Freeman, and the Warriors had their largest lead of the contest at 80-62 and the Lakers were finished with just 64 ticks left on the clock.
"I thought we played with a passion that looked like what Indian Hills basketball should look like," Plona said. "If we continue to do this, hopefully we can build on it and I think we have a chance against anybody."
Jones led the IHCC scoring with 20 points followed by 17 from Anderson. Freeman just missed a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds, and Payton netted yet another double-double with 11 points and 10 boards. Payton and Freeman were busy altering shots all afternoon as they had five and four blocks, respectively. Braxton Bayless was the fifth Warrior in double figures with 10 points. Harris and Williams each had five points, and Nickelson chipped in a pair.
"You wouldn't know it based on the stat sheet, but I thought Tyrese Nickelson was outstanding," Plona said. "He had the job of guarding Hall all game. When Curtis Jones got in some foul trouble, Tyrese ran the show. I'll say this about Tyrese over and over. I don't know exactly how he's going to help us win, but he helps us win."
Jones and Johnson led Iowa Lakes with 14 points each. The Lakers shot just 4-for-17 from distance (23.5 percent) and weren't much better from the field as ILCC finished at 33.3 percent (23-for-69). By contrast, IHCC shot an even 50 percent for the contest and 46.2 percent (12-for-26) from 3-point range. Indian Hills had another solid day at the free throw stripe making 22-of-29.
The aforementioned regular season finale' is Wednesday night at the Hellyer Center in the second meeting with Kirkwood (12-8). The game will mark Sophomore Night as the Warriors will celebrate seven players before tipoff. IHCC took a hard-fought 78-70 win at Kirkwood in the fifth game of the season back on February 3 in Cedar Rapids.
"We don't have a lot of time left together," Plona stated. "This has been a very challenging, difficult, strange year and I know this group really enjoys the opportunity to play with each other. We want to keep this thing going as long as we can."
INDIAN HILLS 84, IOWA LAKES 67
1st 2nd TOTAL
Iowa Hills 39 45 84
Indian Hills 29 38 67