North Linn is in the midst of another typical, wonderful girls’ basketball season

When a program enjoys this amount of success for this length of time, it’s natural — albeit unfortunately — for it to be taken for granted.

Such is life for the girls’ basketball program at North Linn.

But only from the outside.

“We can never start looking at it like that,” Lynx Coach Brian Wheatley said. “We can’t afford to look too far ahead, or too far behind.”

The top-ranked team in Class 1A since the start of the season, North Linn is in the midst of a typically outstanding winter. The Lynx (15-1 overall, 12-0 Tri-Rivers Conference West Division) wrapped up their third straight divisional title — and their 10th in the last 12 years — with a 60-25 win over Central City on Tuesday.

“It’s nice, but we don’t have a lot of time to celebrate,” Wheatley said.

That’s because the Lynx face a non-conference showdown with 3A No. 1 Mount Vernon (15-1) on Thursday.

Tipoff is 7:30 p.m. at Troy Mills.

“Mount Vernon presents a ton of challenges,” Wheatley said. “They have size, and they have ability to shoot on top of that.”

North Linn’s non-conference slate also contained tests against 4A soon-to-be-No. 1 Clear Creek Amana (a 45-44 loss at Rivalry Saturday) and 2A No. 4 Iowa City Regina (a come-from-behind 53-48 win last Saturday).

The Lynx conclude the regular season at Cascade on Feb. 8.

“It’s the toughest non-conference that we’ve ever had,” Wheatley said. “I thought that would work well for this group.”

This group is a veteran outfit, fueled by seniors Kamryn Kurt (18.6 points per game) and Macy Boge (15.9 ppg), and junior Molly Boge (12.8 ppg).

“They can all do some many things,” Wheatley said. “One big improvement in Macy is she has played some high post, which probably isn’t a natural spot for her.”

Pre-holiday injuries to Skylar Benesh and Emilie Bueter zapped the Lynx’s depth somewhat, but everybody is back now.

Wheatley’s daughter, senior Meghan Wheatley, is shooting 61 percent from 3-point range and is 8-for-8 from distance in the last two divisional games.

North Linn has beaten its 12 league foes by an average of 41 points per game and finishes TRC West play with battles against East Buchanan (Friday) and Maquoketa Valley (Tuesday).

Back-to-back showdowns approaching in RVC North

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One byproduct of the weather-caused scheduling mess of the past two weeks is this:

River Valley Conference North Division titans Monticello (12-2, 7-0) and Maquoketa (11-2, 6-0) will play twice in four days.

The makeup game (from Jan. 12) is slotted for Saturday at Monticello. The regularly scheduled contest at Maquoketa is Tuesday.

Monticello junior Jayden Kuper crossed the 1,000-point plateau Tuesday. She has 1,016 points in 2 1/2 seasons, and is among the area leaders in points (21.0), rebounds (10.4) and steals (5.4) per game.

Maquoketa has won nine games in a row.

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com