No. 2 Waverly fends off Waukon's upset bid, 44-38

CEDAR FALLS - There are no moral victories at this point. A loss is a loss, and it ends your season.

That's how the Waukon Indians felt Monday night after a 44-38 near miss against No. 2 Waverly-Shell Rock in a much-closer-than-expected Class 3A substate final at the McLeod Center. The Go-Hawks move on to the state tournament, as everyone expected, while Waukon gets ready for track and field season.

But there has to be some pride in this defeat. At least you hope so.

“There was not a whole lot more you could ask for, really, for what we were expected to do,” said Waukon center Christian Fahey. “We were predicted to be dead last in the conference. It was nice to prove to some people that we were for real.”

“Our guys are just really gritty,” said Waukon Coach Jed Hemann. “They expected to play with Waverly.”

And they did. Waukon (13-11) led at halftime, 25-23, and it was 34-34 after three quarters.

The Indians controlled tempo and had two of Waverly's “big three” in foul trouble (point guard Connor Coleman and forward Klinton Carlson), but went eight minutes without a field goal between the late third quarter and late fourth, and that spelled doom. The Go-Hawks (23-1) got consecutive buckets from Carlson, Coleman and Jesse Hendrickson, the other member of the “big three” to build a six-point lead with three minutes to go, and that was that.

No monumental upset.

“That was difficult,” said Waverly forward Jesse Hendrickson, who had a team-high 14 points. “You've got to give credit to Waukon. We didn't come out very strong right away. Luckily we never gave up and just hung in there. Just keep chipping away.”

The 6-foot-6 Fahey scored a game-high 15 points for Waukon but had just three in the second half. Second-leading scorer Parker Hesse was shutout completely, and no one else could step up to fill the void.

“Guys played their guts out,” Hemann said. “We wanted a low-scoring game, and we got a low-scoring game. Lately we've been able to finish games late in the fourth quarter, but tonight we just couldn't knock down that shot we had to have.”

“We had to play defense, control the ball, get good shots and simply outwork them,” Fahey said. “They're a great team, though. They're going to make a run at state.”

Now that they're fortunate enough to get there.