ServPro Crossover Challenge Roundup

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Bergy Boot Camp.

Iowa City West boys’ basketball coach Steve Bergman worked his team hard over the holiday break. Like really hard.

Practices were in the two and a half to three-hour range. Defense was stressed as it usually is, but so was offense and offensive efficiency.

West has more guys who also played football in the fall than normal. That has probably meant the Trojans are a bit behind than they ordinarily might be.

“I’ve never had it,” said Bergman, whose team beat up Davenport Assumption, 71-44, in Saturday’s ServPro Crossover Challenge at Alliant Energy PowerHouse. “They worked really hard over Christmas break. We kind of had a boot camp, and I thought they bought in and bonded well. It was tough. It was ‘Do (the drill) right, or we’re doing it again.’ What we do a lot of is we run it early, we’re tired and now we’re on defense for eight minutes. Do it right, or we do it over.”

One given for West (6-2) is Jack McCaffery, and the Butler signee was stellar again in this game with 27 points. He hit five 3-pointers.

Sophomore KingSton Swayzer added 10 points off the bench, and it’s that auxiliary scoring that will be important for the Trojans to be a factor once the postseason rolls around in late February.

Assumption (2-5) played without top player Damyen Jackson, who was in a suit and tie on the Knights bench for the game. Isiah Rose and Braylon Thomsen led Assumption with 10 points apiece.

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Bettendorf rolls past Liberty

Caden Wilkins was Bettendorf’s all-time career scoring and rebounding leader. He led the Bulldogs to the state tournament last season and a quarterfinal-round victory.

But the prolific forward is playing college ball at Wisconsin-Green Bay, leaving you wonder if this would be a down year for Bett. On top of that, longtime successful head coach Curtis Clark also stepped down after last season.

But not so fast with the rebuilding talk. An 81-55 beatdown of Iowa City Liberty in the event opener Saturday morning was pretty impressive.

Bettendorf (5-2) has some size and another good player in 6-foot-6 senior wing Ben Kerkhoff. The Division II Wayne State (Neb.) signee had 18 points for the Bulldogs, who have won four games in a row.

That tied for team-high honors with Amari Washington. Cole Odefy added 15 points.

Guard Jerimiah Washpun led Liberty (2-6) with a game-high 21 points. The Lightning trailed only 19-17 in the first half, but Bettendorf ran away from there, leading at halftime, 42-24.

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Waukee Northwest with impressive win over Senior

Take what you already had, add two significant move-ins and a significant transfer, and what do you have. In Waukee Northwest’s case, a really good basketball team.

Six-foot-8 Landon Davis had 19 points and five blocked shots as Northwest handed Dubuque Senior its first loss, 65-42. He’s one of the Wolves’ holdovers.

Bode Goodman added 14 points for Northwest (6-2). He’s the transfer from Southeast Polk.

Peyton McCollum added 10 points and seven rebounds. He and younger brother Tate came in when their father, Ray, took the head coaching job at Drake University, last spring.

Northwest clearly was the superior team, leading from start to finish. Tevin Schultz had a game-high 24 points for the Rams (5-1).

Like Mississippi Valley Conference cohorts Cedar Rapids Kennedy, Linn-Mar, Cedar Rapids Prairie and Iowa City Liberty, Senior played a Friday night game, while Northwest did not. Neither did Ankeny, Ames, Bettendorf and Iowa City West, other teams that won here Saturday.

Cedar Falls beats Valley in finale

The best win of the day? Hands down that was Cedar Falls’ 73-57 victory over West Des Moines in the Crossover’s finale Saturday night.

The Tigers will assuredly be the No. 1-ranked team in 4A when the Iowa High School Athletic Association comes out with its first team rankings Monday. CF already posted a win over Cedar Rapids Kennedy and blowout wins over Linn-Mar and Iowa City West, all considered rankable teams.

Then came this one again the two-time defending 4A state champ. Cedar Falls (7-0) outscored Valley (6-2) by a 32-17 margin in the second half to take this one over and close the door shut.

Will Geerdes and Jaydon Kimbrough scored 18 points each for CF, which moves the ball offensively so well and has shooters all over the court. All-state guard and Iowa State football signee Zay Robinson (as a wide receiver) played his first game of the season because of a football injury and had a game-high 30 points.

A pair of technical fouls issued on Valley in the second half helped open the spread for Cedar Falls. The first one was on Tigers Coach B.J. Windhorst, the second on forward Marcus McGregor, which fouled him out.

Cedar Falls scored 11 points total off those technicals, including free throws and off extra offensive possessions it was given because of them.

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