Wapello presses Pekin into submission

PACKWOOD - The improvement from the beginning of a season is something all coaches strive for and Wapello coach Brandon Brown saw that in his Arrows Tuesday in a Class 2A Region 6 quarterfinal district opener for Wapello and Pekin.

Pekin had defeated Wapello in the first game of the year 51-35 on the Panthers' home court.

Wapello made this game Pekin's last of the year on the same court with a 44-20 win over the Panthers.

'It was a great season that had to end sometime,” Pekin head coach Davis Eidahl said. 'We just did not do what we need to do. Things did not go well for us and it started right away.”

The Panthers couldn't get started while the Arrows shot the first basket of the game from 3-point land and made another a minute later. They ended the first quarter with a 13-0 lead.

'In the first quarter, we should've closed out better on the 3-point shooters,” Eidahl said. 'We should've broke that press a little better. That really hurt us.”

'Those threes we made in the first quarter got us going and that was big,” Brown said.

The teams did not play their second scheduled game of the season, which would have been last Thursday, due to weather.

'Our girls wanted this one really bad,” Brown said. 'We were looking forward to playing them at the end of the regular season and we did not get that chance. The girls knew they were a better team than that first game showed and I think they wanted to prove it.”

Wapello's best offense then became missed shots as they repeatedly got second and third shots with offensive rebounds.

'I can't explain it,” Brown said. '(Pekin's Kerrigan) Pope it is a force inside. She can rebound and she can score but our girls did a good job of getting her on their back‘s.”

Pope, a sophomore, scored 15 points in the first game. She finished with 10 Tuesday.

'Our defense has been good all year but that was the best I have seen our effort,” Brown said. 'We can speed the game up and that is where our bread and butter is.”

'I don't know what happened in the first quarter,” Eidahl said. 'Maybe we were too ready to go. I just don't know. It was just one of those things. We settled down in the second quarter.”

Pope scored the first points of the second quarter and Pekin held a 10-9 advantage in the frame for a halftime score of 22-10.

The Wapello press made a difference in the third quarter, holding the Panthers to four points while scoring 12. Holly Massner scored eight points in a row herself and finished with 16. Eryka Dickey scored 10 and went over 1,000 in her Arrows career.

'We don't have a post player,” Brown said. 'Nobody is taller than 5 foot, 8 inches. I can't explain it. We had a game plan but I don't know where half of those rebounds came from but we will take it.”

Erika Coleman had six points while Pekin teammates Sophie Wittrock and Kaylee Peiffer had two apiece. Emilee Linder did not score in her last game as a Panther.

'She was a great leader for us,” Eidahl said. 'We had a good group when she was a freshman and everybody dropped out but her. I told the girls that as long as they left everything on the court, this is just one of those things that happens.”

Wapello advances to play at No. 6 West Branch Friday. Wapello ups its record to 15-5 while Pekin drops its mark to 12-7.

'We thought coming into the season if we could be a .500 team, it would be great and we did better than that,” Eidahl said. 'This is a learning experience. We just made a lot of mistakes because I think we were just too ready to go and we did not think. They know where they were supposed to go but they did not do it.

'We will be better next year. A few years ago we got beat by Regina by 28 points and the next year we went to state.”