All in the Barnstormers' family for Spring Fling finals

NORTH LIBERTY - For the players competing in the Spring Fling 17-and-under AAU championship game Sunday, the game was personal and the emotion was raw. And it was all in the family.

The highflying 17U Iowa Barnstormers Black squad faced its brethren out of semiretirement - the Barnstormers' Gold team. The Barnstormers Gold consisted of high school seniors who formerly played with the Barnstormers but were brought back for the weekend tournament after a team pulled out late.

The Gold didn't lay down earlier in the tournament, and advanced to the title game. They made dang sure they weren't going to go down to their former teammates both at the AAU and high school levels without fighting for every loose ball.

“We know that they're good, but we don't lose to them knowing we're older,” said Gold member Josiah Coleman, a Cedar Rapids Kennedy senior. “So we just go out and compete.”

The Gold nearly pulled it off. It led by one point with less than five minutes to before the Black squad took control and wiggled away a 72-68 win for the championship.

Iowa City West junior Dondre Alexander, who scored a team-high 28 points, put the Black squad ahead to stay with a turnaround jumper with 4:35 left. He followed the next possession with an alley-oop pass to Waverly-Shell Rock's Klint Carlson, who slammed it down to take a 60-57 lead. The Black squad twice took five-point leads in the final minutes, but the game was far from over.

Des Moines Hoover senior Dwight Sistrunk sank two 3-pointers in the final minute to bring the Gold squad within a basket each time. But the Black squad hit all 13 free-throw attempts - including nine in the final 2:23 - to take the win.

“We're really good friends with the other team, all of the teams were around from this area,” said Iowa City West junior Jeremy Morgan, who scored 12 points for the Black squad. “We used to scrimmage them all the time last year, and they were motivation for us. I can see why they would want to come out and beat us.”

At times the game was chippy among the primarily corridor competitors, but it didn't get out of control.

“The guys didn't want to lose and the other team didn't want to lose and it was very competitive,” Iowa Barnstormers executive director Jamie Johnson said. “It never escalated because we're all part of the same basketball family. So we kept it civil.”

The Barnstormers won the other two age brackets - 15U and 16U - beating the All-Iowa Attack in both title games.