Lions wrap up regular season with a win over IF-A

(Above) Gavin Anderson works his way around an IF-A defender.  The Lions picked up a 73-46 win over the North Central Conference foe to end the regular season.  -Reporter photo by Chris Barragy

by Marianne Gasaway

The Lions wrapped up the regular season with a resounding win over a North Central Conference opponent.  They defeated Iowa Falls-Alden, 73-46, to improve to 15-5 heading.

Clear Lake opened post-season play Monday night and topped another NCC foe, Hampton-Dumont-CAL, to advance.  Details of that game will appear in next week’s Mirror-Reporter. The Lions will host Waverly-Shell Rock Thursday, Feb. 24, in a 7 p.m. win-or-go-home game.

Coach Ainley said his team’s win against IF-A would be a good building block for the post-season.  

“It was a great game to wrap up the regular season,” he said.  “We started out a little slow— down 6-0 to start— and we called a timeout and got on them a little bit about guarding and our energy and effort really changed.  We were diving for loose balls and started to guard a little harder.”

The extra effort paid off and the Lions built a 19-13 lead after one quarter.  The Lions led by as many as 17 in the second quarter before the Cadets went on an 8-0 run to make the halftime score 38-27.

The Lions kept their foot on the gas in the second half and built their lead to more than 20 while cursing to the win.

“Overall,  it was a phenomenal team effort, as evidenced by our 25 assists and only six turnovers,” said Ainley.  “We were extremely fun to watch moving the ball and making extra passes.”

Carson Toebe had a great all-around performance with  19 points, six rebounds and eight assists.  Thomas Meyer was the beneficiary of many of those passes and had 14 points on seven-for-seven shooting.  Joe Faber was also dialed in and had a season high 11 points and Travaughn Luyobya finished with 11 points and 12 assists.  

Jagger Schmitt finished with seven points. Cael Stephany had six, Titan Schmitt three, and Dylan Litzel put in two points.