Rallies fall short for Van Buren County

DANVILLE — Both Van Buren County basketball teams found themselves scrapping for a comeback on Tuesday night in Danville, but both teams fell short in a Southeast Iowa Super Conference South Division doubleheader.

The Warrior girls fell 60-52 in the first game. The boys were defeated 61-47.

Danville and Van Buren traded blows throughout the first half. The Bears held a 10-8 lead after one quarter, and although Van Buren did jump on top early in the second, the Bears closed the period strong to take a 22-19 halftime advantage.

The Warriors seemingly started to fade out in the third quarter, as Danville was able to force multiple turnovers early in the third and went into the final eight minutes with a 42-29 advantage. Van Buren, however, had plenty of fight left.

“We buckled down a little bit,” said Warriors’ Assistant Coach Brad Davidson. “We stopped with some of the silly turnovers we had.”

And when the Warriors stopped giving the ball away, they were able to dump it down to Ivy Davidson in the post, and the Van Buren junior began to will the team back on offense. She put up 20 points in the second half, relentlessly scoring inside, as the Warriors cut the lead to just two possessions.

Van Buren had Danville’s advantage to five after a 3-pointer by Annabelle Cormier with 1 minute, 30 seconds showing on the clock. After a pair of Danville free throws, Davidson sank a layup to cut it back to five, but that’s as close as the Warriors would get.

“The girls did good defensively all night,” Coach Davidson said. “I think we just kind of had tired legs out there, and we ran out of gas a little bit.”

Coach Davidson was sitting in for head coach Marley Hall, who was out with an illness, and he wasn’t the only member of the family who had to step up their game. Ivy finished the night with 27 points.

“She's my daughter, so I'm probably a little harder on her than I am anybody,” Coach Davidson said. “She really stepped up. I told her she kind of had to take the game over, and I really feel like she did.”

The Van Buren boys stayed in it in the first half, but a much bigger Danville team wore on the Warriors all night. The Bears led 14-9 after one quarter, but stretched that lead to 37-24 at halftime to put Van Buren behind the eight ball.

“We're usually the smaller team when we take the court,” said Warrior boys’ head coach Trey Magnani. “That's something we've been getting used to.”

Van Buren had the game back to single digits in the third quarter, as its pressure defense was able to force a handful of turnovers that led to easy points, but Danville clamped up and led 50-34 after three quarters.

The Warriors made another little run in the fourth, but the Bears’ down-low game proved to be too much.

“The biggest difference comes down to rebounding and second-chance points,” Magnani said. “In our wins, we've won the rebounding margin. In our losses, we've not done so, and we've given up quite a bit of second-chance points.”

Jackson Manning scored 15 points to lead the Warriors in the loss. Lucas Fett finished with eight. Bryce Newcomb scored seven. Anthony Duncan had six. Izaak Loeffler finished with five, and Wyatt Mertens scored four.

The Van Buren County girls are now 1-4 on the year. The boys are 2-3. Both will host Holy Trinity on Friday night.