Boys’ basketball notebook: Maquoketa Valley notches huge early season victory

CEDAR RAPIDS — Well that was a win that’ll give you some confidence.

Maquoketa Valley lost its best player to graduation (all-stater Avery Holtz) and some other important dudes, so this was a mildly untested group that hit the floor this boys’ basketball season.

“We’re trying to find our identity, yet, early on,” MV Coach Eric Conner said. “Avery Holtz graduated, and he did a lot for us the last four years. We focus in practice on the defensive end of the ball. We primarily want to be a man-to-man, but coach (Daniel) Cassutt and I are like, we’ll playing anything if we get a win.

“We struggled early on, and a lot of our struggle has been because of us not being our best on the defensive end. So we used our non-conference game the other night (against Elkader Central) on finding some zone defenses we thought we fit into. And we thought we found one.”

That zone defense was the 1-3-1, and it helped Maquoketa Valley slow down Alburnett and eventually pick up a 41-40 upset win Tuesday night over Alburnett at Delhi. Lance McShane’s and-one three-point play with under five seconds left gave the Wildcats the winning points over an Alburnett team that has been ranked in the top 10 in Class 2A in some polls.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association’s official top-10 rankings should be released right before Christmas.

“More than anything, it solidifies that we’re able to get our feet under us,” Conner said. “Mentally, I could tell with our guys, we know we’re a good team. We had a great summer, we returned three starters ... Just being able to do what we wanted to do defensively and to execute a game plan for the first time, those are things that allow our guys to catch their breath, get the monkey off their back a little bit, be like ‘Yeah, OK, we’ll be fine moving forward.’

“That’s a huge win. We’re ecstatic as heck to come out of there with a W.”

McShane was one of the best football players in the area this season and has been MV’s best hoops player so far. He’s averaging a double-double of over about 23 points and 10 rebounds.

“He is so hard to defend because he can shoot the 3,” Conner said. “Sometimes he gets in that mode where he thinks he’s playing fullback instead of power forward, forgetting what sport he’s playing But he has done a really good job of reading the defense and how they are defending him.”

Fellow seniors Toby Grimm and Kody Hoeger also start, with junior Tate Intorf (currently injured) and sophomore Brady Wall. The rest of the MV roster also consists of sophomores.

A unique mix.

“It’s like I talked to our guys after the game (Tuesday night),” Conner said. “Our most important game now is Friday night against Starmont.”

Around the hoop

• Tuesday night’s game between Maquoketa and Cascade at Maquoketa was stopped and ultimately postponed in the first quarter after Maquoketa senior guard Tyler Hinz was injured when he went head first into the bleachers during a play.

Hinz spent the night in a hospital but was released Wednesday.

“He hit his head and had some side effects from that,” Maquoketa Coach Matt Hartman said in a text. “He stopped by school for a short time to say hi and let everyone know he was doing better. He was walking and very fortunate.”

• Postville dropped a tough 49-43 Upper Iowa Conference matchup Tuesday night against North Fayette Valley, dropping the Pirates’ record to 4-1. But those four wins surpass Postville’s win total from each of the previous three seasons.

This turnaround has been pronounced, as Postville won its first four games by 20 points or more. Senior guard-forward Brody Bohr has averaged 22 points and 14.7 rebounds per game early.

• Emerging 6-foot-8 forward Caleb Haack poured in 41 points his Iowa Valley team’s season-opening win last week over English Valleys. A relative of former Iowa Hawkeyes star and NBA player Jarrod Uthoff, Haack averaged just under 20 points per game last season.

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