Another top-10 win for red-hot Linn-Mar boys’ basketball team

MARION - Great win. Great week.

Kudos to you, Linn-Mar’s boys’ basketball team.

The Class 4A No. 4 Lions beat a fellow ranked team for the second time in four days Friday night when they vanquished No. 10 Cedar Rapids Prairie, 69-57. Linn-Mar put together a brilliant second-half performance offensively and defensively to pull away from a tied game at the half.

Couple this with that two-point victory Tuesday night at third-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy, and it’s hard to imagine anyone playing better in the class right now. Linn-Mar (14-2) also owns a significant win from a couple of weeks ago against No. 1 Cedar Falls.

“It was a big week,” said Linn-Mar Coach Chris Robertson. “It’s funny because as big as Tuesday was, tonight was every bit as big. I wasn’t really worried about not being ready tonight, though you do always worry about a big win. The guys not being here Wednesday because they wouldn’t let us practice after we got out early concerned me a little bit. Would have loved to have seen them just to kind of bring them down to earth a little bit.

“But, yeah, a really big week for us. What a great environment tonight, a great crowd.”

These teams played an entertaining first half in which Prairie (13-4) led by six points after a quarter and built as much as a seven-point lead in the second before Linn-Mar rallied. The Hawks can get scoring from a lot of different guys, but here it was center Devin Ikeda (10 first-half points) and guard Austin Joens (8).

The second half was pretty much all Linn-Mar. The Lions made 9 of 14 field-goal attempts in the third quarter to take a 10-point lead into the fourth.

Linn-Mar shot 56 percent in the game overall and 60 percent (15 of 25) in the second half. The ball movement was quick and effective, as were Linn-Mar’s big guys Davis Kern and Tyler Hilton.

The 6-foot-8 senior Kern impressed his future coaching staff at South Dakota State University (they were in the house observing) with a 25-point, seven-rebound, five blocked-shot night. Most of his points came on drives to the hoop and just straight-up power moves inside.

The 6-7 Hilton had a double-double against Kennedy and backed that up with 18 points and six rebounds against Prairie.

“Our big goal is always to win the paint,” Robertson said. “With Davis, you want to win the paint. But we didn’t win the paint in the first half, especially from a defensive standpoint. So we challenged him a little bit about that at halftime, and I thought Davis really stepped up in the second half. Everybody did. They are a tough team to guard because they have really, really good shooters.”

“I think we played defense a lot better,” Kern said. “We gave up 33 points in the first half, it was tied up 33-33, so we knew we had to play better. They shoot the crap out of the ball, and I don’t think they hit too many 3s. I thought we were getting to them (their shooters).”

Ikeda led Prairie with 14 points, with only four coming in the second half. Joens had 11 in the game, with only three coming after halftime.

Prairie was just 3 of 15 from 3-point range.

“Big week. Really big week for us. Two really solid teams we beat,” Kern said. “Kennedy, they’ve been on top for awhile, but Prairie is a really good team, too, and they’ve been making some noise.”

It’s another big game on the horizon next week for Linn-Mar, which plays at No. 6 Dubuque Senior this coming Friday night. But the way these guys are playing right now ...

“I’m excited for any team that we’re going to have to play,” Kern said.

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AT LINN-MAR

CEDAR RAPIDS PRAIRIE (57): David Fason 3-6 2-3 9, Devin Ikeda 7-11 0-0 14, Jace McDermott 2-3 0-0 4, Austin Joens 4-9 1-1 11, Tae Alexander 3-9 0-0 6, Cayden Larson 2-5 0-0 4, Will Wehr 3-9 3-3 9, Hudson Kimm 0-0 0-0 0, Collin McClintock 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-52 6-7 57.

LINN-MAR (69): Payton Nietert 1-8 0-0 2, Tyler Hilton 8-10 2-3 18, Davis Kern 10-21 4-5 25, Mason Matson 4-6 0-0 9, Trey Wright 6-8 0-0 13, Max Robertson 1-1 0-0 2, Karson Rains 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-54 6-8 69.

Halftime - Prairie 33, Linn-Mar 33. 3-point goals - Prairie 3-15 (Fason 1-2, Ikeda 0-1, McDermott 0-1, Joens 2-4, Alexander 0-3, Larson 0-2, Wehr 0-2), Linn-Mar 3-14 (Nietert 0-5, Kern 1-4, Matson 1-2, Wright 1-3). Rebounds - Prairie 24 (Fason 7), Linn-Mar 32 (Nietert, Kern 7, Hilton, Wright 6). Total fouls - Prairie 11, Linn-Mar 10. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - Prairie 7, Linn-Mar 5.

Chris

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