Iowans, Eastern Iowans propel Kirkwood men’s hoops team to national championship

CEDAR RAPIDS – You can win with Iowa kids. Win it all.

Eastern Iowa kids, too, by and large.

There were a bunch of them on this season’s Kirkwood Community College men’s basketball team, a team that won the NJCAA Division II national championship Saturday night via a 55-54 victory over Parkland (Ill.).

Start with the starters.

Traijan Sain graduated from Cedar Rapids Washington, Tate Petersen from Monticello, Zach Erwin from Camanche. Lucas Lueth is from Ames, which is Central Iowa, obviously, but you get the Iowa drift.

Colby Dolphin was a huge factor off the bench. He went to Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

Tyler Netolicky was another key bench guy. He’s from Cedar Rapids Xavier.

“It’s definitely not something that I started,” said Kirkwood head coach Tim Sandquist. “It was the case when Bryan Petersen was here, when Wags (Doug Wagemester) was here as the coach. When Chris Jans was here. I think, and they thought, that we have to dominate Eastern Iowa recruiting wise. Part of the reason for that is that there’s really good basketball on this side of the state. Really good high school coaches. You can win with Iowa kids because they come from good programs. They are taught to play the right way, and they are tough.

“I can’t tell you how many people came up to me at the tournament, whether it was Division I or Division II coaches or tournament people, who just congratulated us for how tough our kids were. That’s Iowa, though.”

These Eagles definitely were tough.

Sain hit a free throw with under two seconds left to provide the winning point against Parkland. Sandquist called a timeout with about 17 seconds to go in a tie game and drew up a play for the 6-foot-5 sophomore to try and make something happen going to the basket or kick it out to a shooter.

Parkland had a desperation attempt from just inside half court on the wing blocked by Kirkwood’s Richard Lindsey Jr.

“Us and Parkland were in the top five in a lot of the major defensive categories,” Sandquist said. “They were allowing 61 points a game, we were allowing 63, so we knew it was going to be a really big challenge … It was just kind of a grinder.”

Kirkwood (33-3) won its first tournament game last week over Kansas City (Kan.), then survived a three-overtime thriller against Macomb (Mich.), 78-77. Dolphin hit a huge 3-pointer in the closing seconds of regulation to send it to overtime.

He finished with 23 points in the game. Dolphin and Sain ultimately were named to the all-tournament team, Lueth the tournament MVP.

Kirkwood had a day off in between that game and its semifinal, providing much-needed recovery time, physically and emotionally. The Eagles blasted Kalamazoo Valley (Mich.) in the semis, 88-73.

This was Sandquist’s fifth season as head coach. His team played together and was incredibly balanced offensively, with Sain leading in scoring at about 12 points per game.

These Eagles got virtually something from everyone. And a school-record win total and a national title for the first time since 2019.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

“You’ve got to be tough to live in the Midwest. Iowa is a blue-collar state, and we’re a blue-collar program,” Sandquist said. “We’ve got blue-collar kids that just work hard. They understand that you’re not going to get anything out of life unless you do that.”

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