Cardinals pay back Forest City

The Garner-Hayfield-Ventura boys picked up two more big wins in action last week, including defeating Forest City, who they are now tied with for second place in the Top of Iowa Conference.  Bishop Garrigan leads the conference with a record of 8-1, while GHV and Forest City stand at 8-2.

GHV 76, North Iowa 41

The GHV boys had no problem handing North Iowa (2-7, 2-9) a 76-41 loss on Tuesday, Jan. 9, at home.

“North Iowa gave us a good battle for three quarters the last time we played, so we knew we would have to play well to beat them,” said Coach Joe Albertson.

The Cardinals took control early. James Betz came ready to play, as he put in the first six points for GHV to take a 6-2 lead.  From there, the Cardinals went on a 12 point run and ended the first quarter up, 22-11.

GHV ended the second quarter with a 10-point run to take a 20-point lead into the half, 41-21.

The Cardinal scoring machine was in high gear for the third quarter, as they pumped in 21-points, while holding North Iowa to nine points.

The GHV bench got to see quality minutes in the fourth quarter and contributed to the 76-41 victory.

“We had eight guys with multiple assists on the night and we kept possessions alive with nine different players grabbing offensive rebounds,” said Albertson.

Three players reached double figures for the Cardinals.  Ryan Meyers led the team with 19-points.  He was 2/3 from the three-point line and 3/4 from the free throw line.  Nick Joynt and Tyler Betz scored 17 and 15 points respectively.  Colton Schroeder and Austin Bahensky each had five points, while Jared Graham, Ray Cataldo and Matthew Heinemann had four points apiece.

Betz led the team under the boards with six rebounds.  Meyers and Jonah Albertson had four rebounds apiece.

Ray Cataldo led the team in both assists and steals, with five assists and four steals.  Meyers ended with four assists and one steal.

Betz collected four blocks.

“The guys forced many turnovers, which led to many buckets, and that changed the game to our favor,” said Albertson. “This was the most inspired effort we have had since the break.”

GHV 54, Forest City 51

Revenge was sweet, but hard to come by Friday night when the Cardinals traveled to Forest City.  The Indians beat GHV earlier in the season on a buzzer beater.  Friday night’s match-up proved to be just as exciting.

Forest City’s inside game was hot in the first-quarter and the Indians managed to gain a four-point advantage, 18-14.

Colton Schroeder and Jonah Albertson hit back-to-back threes in the second quarter to give GHV the first lead of the game, 22-20. The score was knotted at 24-24 heading into the break.

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dealt some more adversity when Zach picked up his fourth foul in the third quarter.  Forced to sit, we had to find some scoring out of some other guys and I was very pleased as the team seemed to not skip a beat,” said Coach Ainley.

The Gaels closed the point gap a bit in the fourth quarter, helped by some turnovers and mistakes by the Lions.  The visitors cut the lead to three points before Lester made a couple big baskets in the final 1:30 to seal the victory.

“Overall, I was really pleased with the effort of the whole team, especially defensively,” said Ainley.  “They were shooting nearly 50 percent as a team coming in and we held them to 35 percent shooting. Their leading scorer had 17 points early in the third quarter and we put Nick Danielson on him, and he held him scoreless the rest of the game – a nice accomplishment from Nick.

Lester led the Lions with 31 points, including some huge free throws down the stretch to preserve a win.   He was 10/12 from the line.

“Tate Storbeck had his best shooting game to date and continues to get more comfortable shooting the ball and had 11 points,” noted Ainley.

The coach also noted Jaylen DeVries is getting his legs back under him after missing the first half of the season, and had a great game with four points, but more importantly eight rebounds.

“Jared Penning and Sean Wendel gave us some scoring down low that helped, but also played great defense on their two big guys,” said Ainley.  Both players scored six points and Penning also grabbed eight rebounds.

Drew Enke put in three points and Andrew Formanek had two to complete the Lions’ scoring.

“Overall, we are starting to see what kind of team we envisioned at the start of the season and now the pieces are coming into place,” said Ainley.  “It should be a fun conference race down the stretch.”

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