A conference title in its back pocket, Maquoketa Valley boys hoops team wants to make a long postseason run

DELHI - Eric Conner approached his Maquoketa Valley boys basketball team, which was sitting on the bench during a timeout between the first and second quarters.

He was mostly calm. No fire, no brimstone, no four-letter words from him.

Conner just simply reminded his guys, who were involved in a very tight Class 1A district quarterfinal Monday night against Tri-Rivers Conference mate Central City at that point, that they shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the game was close.

“This is postseason basketball,” he told his guys.

He explained his full timeout message to his Wildcats after Maquoketa Valley secured a 61-39 win. A good second-half performance and good shooting from 3-point territory was the key.

“It doesn’t matter (records) because everyone is 0-0 right now,” Conner said. “It doesn’t matter what has happened previously. Any coach can tell you how hard it is to beat a team three times in a season. That’s what’s nice about the postseason.

“They have seen every thing you have. And they brought a different level of intensity than the first two times we played them. But I thought our guys did a really good job. We went through spurts of really good basketball. I thought we rebounded really well. That was important for us, to get stops and rebound, then push the basketball at the right time.”

So Maquoketa Valley (18-5) moves on to the next round, which is what it’s all about right now. Ed-Co (15-8) is the district semifinal opponent Thursday night back at Delphi.

The Wildcats have had a very good season, one that sees them on a current seven-game win streak and one that saw them win the Tri-Rivers Conference West Division.

That’s MV’s first conference title in boys basketball since 2010. Of course, North Linn had been hoarding conference championships for the past decade-plus.

But this one went to Maquoketa Valley by a game over Springville.

“Yes, it does mean something,” Conner said. “I played for Ed-Co for four years against them and got my butt kicked. So knowing the talent level of that team just because I played against them, and just the tradition of basketball here at MV. I told our guys this if you look back Maquoketa Valley does have 18 conference championships, North Linn has been on a hell of a run and has 14. So it’s tradition at our school, we’ve got guys whose dads played at MV.”

Central City (6-15) had a good game plan, running a lot of shot clock on possessions. It led to a one-point lead after the first quarter, with Maquoketa Valley rallying late in the second quarter to take a 30-22 halftime lead.

Central City cut the lead to two possessions in the third quarter but a Trevor Grimm 3-pointer right at the buzzer put his Wildcats up 44-35 headed to the fourth. Central City played only five players in the game and seemed to get worn down some in the fourth, which led the MV lead grow.

Maquoketa Valley made 11 of 21 shots 3-point range, with Eli Dougherty coming off the bench to hit five himself. His 15 points were second in team scoring to senior guard Brady Wall, who went off for 28 points.

The Wildcats lead scorer is headed to the University of Dubuque after he graduates high school but he won’t be playing sports. He wants to study to be an airplane pilot.

“They had a lot of seniors, and we knew we were going to get their best shot,” Wall said. “Our mentality was just come out and don’t make this the last game on our home floor. We want to win the first game, then get on to the next game and work our tails off.”

“Brady Wall is tough to guard when he’s hitting shots like that,” Conner said. “We do a good job of screening to get him open. Yeah, I like where we’re at as a team.“

Central City got 16-point nights from forward Chris Hanson and guard Dashny Munyakazi. The Wildcats didn’t use their bench the entire game, and one of the five iron-man starters didn’t even attempt a shot.

Jase Stecher did pull down seven rebounds, though.

“I'm super proud of this group,” said first-year CC head coach Sam Elgin. “Essentially, I'm playing five guys every single night, and that's nothing against our young guys. They just weren't ready. We had that talk in the locker room, too. It’ll be a big off season for them.

“We won our first game,then lose our next nine. Then we go on a four-game winning streak, and we battle essentially every game after Christmans. And it has kind of been like this. We’re playing well for three and a half quarters, like we did tonight. Then we fall apart.”

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AT DELHI

CENTRAL CITY (39): Dashny Munyakazi 6-10 3-4 16, Chris Hanson 8-11 0-0 16, Colton Welton 1-3 0-0 2, Jace Stecher 0-0 0-0 0, Josh Lindsey 2-11 0-0 5. Totals 17-35 3-4 39.

MAQUOKETA VALLEY (61): Lukas Chesnut 1-4 0-0 2, Ty Hoeger 2-5 0-0 4, Trevor Grimm 2-8 0-0 6, Dylan Knipper 1-2 0-0 2, Brady Wall 11-21 2-3 28, Eli Dougherty 5-9 0-0 15, Preston Salow 2-4 0-0 4, Kenyon Baker 0-0 0-0 0, Wes Scherrman 0-0 0-0 0, Rylan Rausch 0-0 0-0 0, Zach Leyton 0-0 0-0 0, Dashawn Strickland 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-53 2-3 61.

Halftime - Maquoketa Valley 30, Central City 22. 3-point goals - Central City 2-9 (Munyakazi 1-2 Welton 0-1, Lindsey 1-6), Maquoketa Valley 11-21 (Chestnut 0-1, Grimm 2-6, Wall 4-6, Dougherty 5-8). Rebounds - Central City 22 (Hanson, Stecher 6), Maquoketa Valley (Knipper 14). Total fouls - Central City 8, Maquoketa Valley 7. Technical foul - Central City bench. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - Central City 18, Maquoketa Valley 9.

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