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Warriors lead nearly start to finish
Roth’s huge fourth quarter propels Warriors to victory
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
VICTOR — There was one lead change in Victor Tuesday night, and that change did not last long.
The Plainsmen, off a Luke Eichhorn layup, captured their first lead at 37-36 midway through the fourth quarter of a South Iowa Cedar League cross-divisional game between Belle Plaine and HLV-TC.
The very next possession?
HLV-TC’s Peyton Roth connected on a three to reclaim the lead for the Warriors, and they led the rest of the way.
Roth did not just stop there.
During the next two offensive possessions for the Warriors, Roth launched two more, swishing both.
Roth’s three straight from deep gave the Warriors a 45-41 lead, and the team added four from the free-throw line for a 49-41 win.
“When you got a guy like Peyton, it makes my job easy,” HLV-TC coach Shawn Welsh said. “When he gets going, he gets going.”
The hot hand for the Warriors to start this one was Sean McCulloch. He put up eight of the team’s first 11 points.
“Sean’s been struggling with his shot a little bit, but he came out hot tonight and got us going,” Welsh said.
The Warriors led 15-7 after a quarter.
The lead did not budge much in the second, but the Warriors did extend it to 11 at one point, at 25-14.
Baskets from Mason Walter and Gabe Kaplan cut the lead to seven heading to half with a 25-18 score.
Things heated up in the third.
After four offensive rebounds, Roth hit a three to extend the lead to 10.
The Plainsmen began slowly cutting into that deficit.
Sam DeMeulenaere connected on a basket plus the foul, and on the next possession Ty Alcott drove for a layup. Suddenly the lead was only three.
The Plainsmen doubled up the Warriors in scoring in the quarter until the very last possession, when Tucker Donaldson hit a three right before the buzzer to give the Warriors a four-point lead.
The teams traded blows at the start of the fourth quarter.
Alcott connected on one of the Plainsmen’s two threes on the night to cut the lead to one.
The Plainsmen withstood Roth’s first two threes, scoring on their responding offensive possessions, but failed to score again down the stretch after Roth’s third three-pointer.
“We finally stopped settling for shots, and we got going side to side and made them play defense,” Welsh said about the change in the fourth.
Roth scored a game-high 25 for the Warriors. The team’s other two main scorers, McCulloch and Levi Molyneux, each had 10.
DeMeulenaere led the Plainsmen with 16, and Alcott was also in double figures with 10.
The win put the Warriors at 6-5 on the season, while the Plainsmen fell to 3-10.
With a 21 game regular season, both teams have now crossed the halfway point.
“We just got to work on being more together for a full 32 minutes and be more consistent throughout,” said Welsh as he looked at the rest of the season.
GIRLS: HLV-TC 54, Belle Plaine 11
Three players scored in double figures as the Warriors rolled to victory Tuesday night in the girls’ contest.
Ayla Hall scored 16 and added eight assists and seven steals.
Emery Hall and Lily Randall each scored 11.
As a team, the Warriors grabbed 22 steals.
