The North Tama Redhawks went up against two experienced boys’ state tournament squads in two days and the results of both were similar. Around the middle of each game, the turnovers and missed shots piled up and NT suffered crushing defeats. However, the Redhawks’ fourth-place finish and 26-3 record still make for the best season in school history.
Thursday’s semifinal game was against defending state champion Boyden-Hull, slotted as a 7 seed because of its three losses to Class 3A teams. NT and BH were equally matched for the first half. Each team had three 3-pointers on the way to a 32-31 Boyden-Hull lead. This was higher than the Wisconsin-Michigan State game later that night, which was 25-18 MSU at the half (and 58-43 final).
As the second half began, the game took a bad turn for North Tama. The Redhawks turned the ball over seven times in the third quarter alone, and the Comets cruised to a 77-52 victory. BH was also 22-of-29 on free throws while NT was only 1-of-7.
North Tama’s Paul Kaufman makes his only basket of Friday’s consolation game, a 3-pointer in the second quarter that put the Redhawks up 23-22 over Danville. It would be the second-to-last time NT led and second-to-last basket before an eight-minute dry spell.
The consolation game on Friday morning was against season-long No. 1 and top seed Danville, last year’s runner-up, which had suffered its first loss of the season to Storm Lake St. Mary’s. Once again, the Redhawks and Bears started playing a back-and-forth game. Around the 2:20 mark of the second quarter, the scoreboard malfunctioned, and after that, North Tama couldn’t put a game together. The remainder of the half played out for the Redhawks with two missed free throws, a missed three-pointer, two turnovers, and seven Danville points.
The second half was all Danville, who kept building on a double-digit lead en route to an 80-56 win. Danville showed why it had been the season’s top team with plenty of nothing-but-net baskets; the Bears were 53% overall on field-goal shooting. A 3-pointer by Trey Keahna and dunk by Mitchell Boerm at the end gave the North Tama crowd a little to cheer for, but by then the end was foreordained.
Semifinal game stories: Waterloo Courier, Marshalltown Times-Republican, T-R consolation preview, Sioux City Journal, KGAN, KTIV, KMEG (very last segment; that’s South Sioux City in identical red Iowa-style uniforms at the beginning); Des Moines Register photo gallery. Box score.
Consolation game stories: Waterloo Courier, Iowa Prep Sports, more to follow, either here or in another post. Box score.
PS: Have I mentioned that the state tournament concession prices are outright highway robbery? Because they are. College sports venues aren’t any better.