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Winfield-Mt. Union advances with first round win over New London
Wolves top Tigers in Class 1A Region 5 opening round
WINFIELD — Southeast Iowa Super Conference North and South foes Winfield-Mt. Union and New London squared off in a Class 1A Region 5 matchup on Monday night with the basketball season on the line.
The No. 5 Wolves only got better as the game went on as they advanced to round two with a 70-37 win over their conference rivals.
With a daunting height difference New London did all it could in the early game to protect the rim; however, the Wolves’ 6’4’’ combo guard Jake Edwards forced the Tigers to extend their zone defense to the perimeter.
Edwards led the Wolves with 22 points in the win, knocking down 6-of-11 from deep. The junior hit all but two of the Wolves three balls in the contest.
“I feel like when me, Carter (Loyd) and Gabe (Hemsworth) are shooting it opens up a lot inside,” Edwards said. “Recently teams have packed it inside because we haven’t been shooting the best, so when we shoot well it opens up the inside. It really opens up our offense.”
Edwards kicked off the scoring with a deep ball and the Wolves would never trail. WMU jumped out to a 12-5 lead after Carter Loyd drilled a three of his own.
New London stayed right in it thanks to sophomore guard Brigham Porter. Porter scored six of the Tigers nine first quarter points all of which came in the final three minutes. Carter Benjamin opened the Tigers’ scoring with a three.
After Porters final bucket, the Tigers faced just a 14-9 deficit, but the Wolves’ Cam Buffington buried a jumper with two seconds left to push it to 16-9.
The Wolves’ shooting opened up the inside for the likes of 6’6’’ Abram Edwards and Buffington as the pair finished with a combined 35 points and accounted for over half of the Wolves’ made field goals with the majority coming around the rim.
“I feel like we competed,” New London head coach Bryant Porter said. “Our game-plan was to sit on the bigs a little big, but when they start hitting threes like they did it’s like pick your poison. Unfortunately that’s what kind of happen to us tonight.”
To open the second, the pair scored put together a 6-2 run to make it a 22-11 ballgame. After connecting on two from the stripe from the Tiger’s London Franklin cut it back to single digits, 22-13, Jake Edwards hit another three and the Wolves would never let it get below 10 again.
WMU closed the first half on an 8-5 run, which included a Buffington three at the buzzer to make it 34-18 at the break.
The Tigers could never recover thanks to stifling defense.
“Defensively our game-plan was to take away (Brendan) Richey,” Winfield-Mt. Union head coach Klay Edwards said. “Gabe Hemsworth did a fantastic job there. He’s made a lot threes this year in the games where they’ve looked good. Our guys are long enough where they can help on the perimeter and get back into the paint and block some shots. I felt that they did a nice job of that.”
The Wolves finished with eight blocks on the night.
In the third period, the Wolves won the scoring battle 23-12, highlighted by three straight threes from Jake Edwards. Heading into the fourth, WMU held a 58-30 lead.
“We are going to have a lot of guys come back,” Porter said. “Hopefully we grow a little bit. We’re going to plan on pressuring teams. We need the guys to get into the weight room and continue to work on the skills. We gotta bring a little juice.”
With the win, Winfield-Mt. Union improves to 17-2 and will take on Danville (15-7) in round two. New London ends its season at 5-17.
“Moving forward you know we just need to execute,” Klay Edwards said. “We know what people are going to do. We have to take care of the ball and make sure we get a shot up every time. We have to have all five guys rebound. We want to get up and down. We want to get some easy buckets.”
