Rams roll to 80-59 win over Titans

It’s a different year and a different team but Glenwood happily avenged it’s only loss from a year ago and stayed undefeated this season with an impressive 80-59 over previously unbeaten Council Bluffs Lewis Central in Hawkeye 10 Conference girls basketball Tuesday, Dec. 22.

The Rams (7-0 overall, 3-0 in the conference), who were indeed upset by the Titans in March’s state semifinals, entered as the top ranked team in Class 4A and played like it over the final two and a half quarters.

“I feel like we could have had more energy to start, more excitement, that was the team that knocked us off last year but we had kind of a slow start,” said Glenwood coach Bryan Rasmussen. “But we kept running and stuck to the game plan and ran, ran, ran and kind of ran them out of gas.”

Leading 20-15 after a back-and-forth opening 10 minutes, the Rams began to settle in during the second quarter when back-to-back three-pointers by Jenna Hopp and Elle Scarborough sparked a 10-0 run. The Titans would battle back to make it 38-30 at the half and hang around through the third quarter before Glenwood pulled away for good.

The Rams hit five of their first seven shots to open the second half – many off layups brought on by their full-court press – and had the lead back to 15 to close the third quarter.

Brynlee Arnold’s layup with four minutes to go extended the Rams lead to 69-48.

“They hit some big shots, they hit something like five or six threes that kept them in it,” Rasmussen said of the Titans’ hanging around when his team appeared to be going on a run to pull away. “I felt like we played a little better defensively in the second half. This was a good victory.”

The Rams out-scored Lewis Central 42-29 in the second half and while they didn’t shoot it particularly well – 42.3 percent – they grabbed a season-high 20 offensive rebounds and had 20 assists on their 31 made field goals.

Madison Camden and Jenna Hopp led the way with 15 points each for Glenwood. Coryl Matheny added a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds and Elle Scarborough, in her just third game back following a preseason knee injury, had 12 points and seven rebounds.

“She’s starting to feel more comfortable,” Rasmussen said of Scarborough. “She’s playing a little different role. We’re not asking her to do everything like she had to do in her freshman and sophomore years, and she’s handling it real well and facilitating.”