Ottumwa -- Chris Childs drained five 3-pointers in the first half and Drake Jeffries made five in the second period and Indian Hills used that long-range marksmanship to knock off Willston State (ND) College, 93-73, on Saturday night at the Hellyer Center.
The Warriors nailed a season-high 14 threes on the way to their 10th win of the season. Childs' total for his sophomore campaign is up to 42 in the first 12 games and he made 11 in the two games of the Bowling RV Classic over the weekend.
For the second straight night, IHCC scored 55 second-half points and they shot nearly 60 percent from the field while holding the visiting Tetons to 42 percent shooting.
Williston State had sliced a 14-point deficit to just six by intermission, but the Warriors ran off 11 consecutive points to open the second half. The Tetons didn't score for almost four minutes after the halftime break. They were able to get the margin down to nine points at 61-52, but back-to-back buckets for IHCC quickly built the lead back up and it was double-digits the rest of the way.
Jeffries was scoreless in the opening 20 minutes then hit a three early in the second half, part of the 11-0 run, and tallied all of his 16 points after the break. Chris Payton led IHCC with 18, 12 coming in the final half. Tyrese Nickelson pumped in all of his 13 after intermission. The trio of Jeffries, Payton and Nickelson matched Williston State's second-half point total with 41.
Childs picked up where he left off the previous evening, when he drilled four threes in the second half, making his first three 3-point attempts in the opening minutes against WSC, shooting Indian Hills into an early 13-4 lead. The Tetons battled back to within a point at 23-22 before another Childs' triple was followed by a basket by Payton and a three from Loseni Kamara. Childs finished off his first-half performance to help establish the 14-point advantage, but WSC got it back to six with two 3-pointers by Alton Lynch to end the period.
The balanced IHCC offense was too much for Williston State to overcome in the final half though despite the efforts of the Tetons' Jordan Kellier. He scored his team's first 11 points of the half when he scored 21 of his game-high 29.
JD Muila's 10 boards led Indian Hills to a 36-27 edge on the glass.
The win was the second in a row in a five-game home stretch for the Warriors. Next up is a game with Southwestern CC on Tuesday night.
INDIAN HILLS 93, WILLISTON STATE 73
INDIAN HILLS (10-2)
Chris Payton 8 2-3 18, Maurice Calloo 3 2-2 9, Tyrese Nickelson 4 4-4 13, Loseni Kamara 2 0-0 5, Chris Childs 5 1-1 16, Tyon Grant-Foster 1 1-2 3, Drake Jeffries 5 1-2 16, JD Muila 3 0-4 6, Dedoch Chan 1 0-0 2, Theo Bourgeois 2 0-0 5, Samba Kane 0 0-0 0 Team 34 11-18 93
WILLISTON STATE (8-4)
Jordan Kellier 11 4-5 29, Kobey Lam 5 0-0 10, Eden Holt 1 4-4 7, Shae Linton-Brown 5 1-1 13, Jonathan Komagum 2 1-2 5, Nathaniel Powell 1 0-0 2, Isaiah Williams 0 1-2 1, Alton Lynch 2 0-0 6 Team 27 11-14 73
Halftime score: Indian Hills 38, Williston State 32; Three-point field goals: IHCC 14 (Childs 5, Jeffries 5, Calloo 1, Nickelson 1, Kamara 1, Bourgeois 1), WSC 8 (Kellier 3, Linton-Brown 2, Lynch 2, Holt 1)