By Elaine Rassel
I am not a writer for sports but I do like watching them. It has been a long time since I played basketball. That was when there were 6 players and we played half court. When I see these girls running full court, I do appreciate that we only had half to run! I have been fortunate to be able to stay home and watch games thanks to those that sponsored these via on television.
We were aware that the MMCRU (Royals) had a hot girls’ basketball team again this year. They had made up their minds that they were going to go to back-to-back again to State. They had lost to Exira-EHK last year and the chance to advance.
The Royals sported a no loss record until they played Unity Christian and lost by a margin. They were going to play Wednesday afternoon (March 2) against the team they had lost to last year at state_Exira-EHK (Elk Horn and Kimballton). They knew how this team played as well as what it was like to play at State, so they were more than ready for that game. MMCRU came out to a 15-2 lead, and proved that one year of wisdom and experience paid off. MMCRU led by 14 at the half and its largest lead was 22 (late in the third quarter). Royals shot 46% from the floor. They shot 43% in the first quarter and 60% in the third. Seven of the 10 MMCRU players who saw action, scored. The Royals won over Exira-EHK by a score of 50-39. Winning this game meant they were to go to the next team_Newell-Fonda and play on Friday (March 4) afternoon. They knew this was a good team and could they upset Newell-Fonda? No matter, they were going to do their best to advance to the championship finals.
Newell-Fonda had beat North Mahaska of New Sharon by committing 40 turn overs on Wednesday. They forced 20 turnovers in each half and turned that into 46 points. The Mustangs (Newell-Fonda) played all 15 girls and 11 of them scored. Their coach says that he plays the younger girls so as to build up his team for the years ahead. (There are two seniors, five freshmen and five sophomores on this team.) Newell-Fonda had made 4-for-4 state championships and weren’t about to lose going back again to this little known team, MMCRU. Could MMCRU get past this team to go the semi-finals with all the information their coach had let out?
MMCRU pulled off perhaps the biggest upset at the Iowa High School girls’ basketball tournament on Friday by beating Class 1A top-seeded Newell-Fonda 66-62 in the semi-finals! Yes, it was called a “Royal Upset”! Newell-Fonda (Mustangs) play a fast game and want their opponent to do the same. Well, the Royals slowed down, were more calm, patient and strong with the ball and didn’t let the Mustangs’ pressure get to them. Sometimes the Royals run to the tempo of their opponent, but not this time. The Royals built their largest lead from the end of the third quarter to the fourth quarter. They led 54-46 with 6 minutes and 46 seconds left in the game. The Mustangs wanted to be fouled but this didn’t always work their way. They picked on MMCRU’s Alesch who made 6 out of 10 of her free throws.
Newell-Fonda team wasn’t a happy camper with the end results as they really wanted to make it 4-for-4 in state championships for their seniors. They ended their season with a 24-2 record with the other loss coming to Estherville-Lincoln Central, which played in a Class 3A title game on Friday. I did see two things that went on with these two teams playing. The first was that the referees saw “foul” rather than jump balls quite early in the game. This made me wonder if this game was going to be all about getting MMCRU girls being fouled out. In the 3rd quarter, things changed by going our way! The second thing I saw was when the two teams pass by each other at the end of the game and supposedly tell the other team,”Congratulations”. This time there were two of MMCRU girls that hugged girls from the opposite team. Someone said they thought our coach did, also. Yes, Newell-Fonda might have lost but maybe this type of sportsmanship on our part, helped cushion their loss a little.
Friday and Saturday games could not be watched like we were used to watching them as Public Television Channel 27-1 had “rights to these games”. We could watch them on Channel 27-1.
Heelan Crusaders played Cedar Rapids Xavier in Class 4A championship game on Friday at 6:45 p.m. Other teams in our area had lost leaving Heelan and MMCRU left to represent our area. Heelan lost 54-40. Now there was only one team left MMCRU!
The Royals were all ready for Saturday’s Semi-Finals at 6:30 p.m. But, first the Central Lyon girls played Dike-New Hartford at 2:30 p.m. I turned to watch this game about 3:30 o’clock and didn’t see anything but a 35-35 score on the screen. I figured it was half-time, so it was time to put sponsors on. However, this continued well past 4 o’clock with the Channel having their Festival Activities on. The other Public Televisions Channels 2,3,4 were on but Channel 1 was either advertising or “Please Stand By”. Across the top of the screen were weather reports from the National Weather Service warning of severe thunderstorms and even a tornado in the areas around Des Moines. (There was a tornado that struck down resulting in many people dying.) Maybe the weather had something to do with why the game wasn’t on.
We did get just bits and pieces of a third and fourth quarter of the game and then saw that Central Lyon had lost 59-52 to Dike-New Hartford. The announcer announced that no one was to leave the Arena because of the weather. Now I wondered if the Royals game would be in the same situation where we wouldn’t be able to see much of the game.
They were playing Bishop Garrigan. I had watched this team a day earlier when they won the right to play the Royals. They had a girl (#55) that was built to play the position the team had her in_under the basket. By the time she stretched her arms out, there really wasn’t much room for anyone to try and shoot for the basket! The previous game I saw her play in, she made over 20 points. She was good at having her team ball and putting it in right under the basket. She could be a problem for the Royals.
The Royals played their best against this team even though they came up on the short end. Mia Holmes made two 3 pointers toward the last that brought cheers from the crowd. The previous team had lost big time to Bishop Garrigan but this can’t be said about the Royals. The final score was 52-49. It would have been nice if there could have been a tie and there would have been an overtime for 3 more minutes, but that wasn’t meant to be. We are PROUD of our MMCRU girls. You did your best!