Glewnood hoopers off to 2-0 start

The Glenwood boys basketball team capped a 2-0 week with a 67-47 victory at Atlantic Friday in Hawkeye 10 Conference boys basketball.

The Rams (2-0 overall, 1-0 in the conference) led 29-17 at the half and then outscored the Trojans 20-9 in the third quarter to pull away.

Ayden Gibson led a balanced scoring effort with 16 points. Landon McGoldrick chipped in 13 points and Colin Steele 12.

Gavin McLaren paced the Trojans with 15 points.

Glenwood 92,
C.B. Thomas Jefferson 59

Glenwood’s season opener didn’t start the way head coach Curt Schulte wanted but it sure finished that way.

The Rams missed nine of their first 10 shots to open the game and trailed by as many as 10 at Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson before hitting 5-of-6 shots and stepping it up on defense to close the opening frame in an impressive 92-59 victory last Tuesday.

“It was the difference,” Schulte said of his defense keying his offense. “We didn’t know them real well. We wanted to try to get the feel early. We were struggling early so we went to that full court pressure. We had our defense turn into offense and created some easy baskets.”

Glenwood trailed 19-16 to open the second quarter but quickly erased that deficit with back-to-back three pointers as part of a 12-1 run to wrestle the lead back at 28-21 with 5:40 left in the half. The lead was 43-26 at the half.

In that second quarter, the Rams forced nine turnovers and outscored the Yellowjackets 27-7.

It all comes back to the defense, Schulte said.

“I was real proud of our full court pressure,” he said. “We’ve been working on that and we tried to change it up on them. We went with our diamond pressure, went to a 2-2-1, and we actually ran some full court man at them too to try to mix up the defense and I think that helped us out.”

The Rams’ lead swelled to 49-26 on Ayden Gibson’s three-pointer with seven minutes to go in the third. The margin reached 29 before the Yellojackets staged a mini-run – thanks to their three-point shooting – to cut the lead 68-51 with 6:09 to go in the game. But Glenwood bounced right back with an 8-0 run to put the game away.

Thomas Jefferson finished 11-of-33 from behind the arc.

“They did knock some threes in on us and we have to do a better job of getting out there with a high hand and defending that,” Schulte said. “For the most part, I was pleased for the first game. We’ve got a lot of stuff yet we’ve got to clean up and continue to get better at.”

The Rams shot nearly 50 percent from the field for the game, including 7-of-19 from behind the arc, and they hit 13-of-18 at the line compared to the Yellowjackets’ 4-of-8 shooting.

Gibson led six Rams to score eight or more points with a game-high 23 points. He also added 10 rebounds.

Colin Steel added 14 points, Jack Johnson and Drew Schroeder had 12 points each, Landon McGoldrick had nine and Cole Staudt eight.

Junior Gatkuoth hit 5-of-10 shots from behind the arc and scored 15 points to lead Thomas Jefferson.