The Montezuma Braves, off to a 7-2 start, will start the 2021 portion of the basketball season against two winning teams from the eastern side of the South Iowa Cedar League.
On Tuesday, the Braves, who are 6-1 in league play, are at English Valleys (6-1) (5-1) and on Friday, they host Iowa Valley, (6-2) (5-2).
English Valleys is led by Kaden Hall, a 6-3 junior who is scoring 19.6 points per game and pulling down 14.3 rebounds per contest.
Iowa Valley, which lost to English Valleys, has three double figures scorers. Junior Brody Ward averages 19.4 per game, sophomore Evan Kearney has a 12.3 scoring average, and Peyton Loffer, a junior, puts in 11.0 per contest.
Everyone in the league is chasing Keota (8-0) (8-0) at the start of the season’s second half.
The Braves, who have been settling into altered roles with the absence of junior forward Eddie Burgess, are hoping his knee will be rehabilitated enough to allow his return before the regular season ends.
Until then, it’s a matter of getting better every day, which will make them deeper in the long run.
Senior guard Trey Shearer continues to lead all of Iowa in scoring with his 31.8 average. He’s a 55.5 percent field goal shooter, including 46.9 percent from three point range.
Trey also averages 5.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists.
Senior swing man Cole Watts has increased both his scoring (21.7) and rebounding (8.9) averages. He’s a .579 field goal shooter, including .421 from behind the arc.
Watts also averages 2.9 assists.
Sophomore guard Masin Shearer averages 7.3 points and 3.9 assists.
Sophomore forward Owen Cook averages 4.3 points and 5.7 rebounds.
And sophomore forward Gavin Strong carries a 5.1 scoring average.
The Braves are scoring 76 points a game and are giving up 54. They’ve moved up about 20 places in Class 1A in defensive yield since early in the eason, with positive results from a full court press impacting those totals.
English Valleys is scoring 55 points per game, and yielding 46.