The conference basketball season is hurtling toward a close, and both the Montezuma girls and boys are closing in on SICL championships.
The girls can get there with a win this week.
The boys can get there with two wins.
The opponents: Lynnville-Sully (Tuesday) and HLV on Saturday. Today, we’ll look at the Lynnville-Sully games.
GIRLS
Lynnville-Sully has had a very respectable season at 15-2 overall and 11-2 against the league.
The Bravettes are at 17-1 and 14-0.
Montezuma won 68-39 when they played in Sully on Dec. 15.
It’s not a tall Lynnville-Sully team, but it is balanced.
Cally Gibbs, a 5-8 senior, leads scoring at 12.5 points per game. Reagan McFarland scores 10.9 per contest.
Korinne Jansen, a 5-8 senior, gets 4.8 rebounds per game, and Meleisha Vos, a 5-8 senior, and Megan Van Zante, a 5-7 senior, are right there with her.
McFarland averages 2.6 assists.
Montezuma has four double figures scorers. Elise Boulton is at 15.9 per game, Mia Boulton at 12.3, Shanae Wetering at 12.1 and Dylan Holland at 10.7.
Elise Boulton averages 6.0 assists and is one of the state leaders in that category.
Holland averaged 8.9 rebounds, and Wetering is a .562 shooter from the field.
Two other teams, North Mahaska and Sigourney, have two league losses entering the final week of SICL play.
BOYS
A very young Hawks squad has put together a 10-5 season, including a 10-3 SICL mark.
Top scorer is 6-2 sophomore Preston Rodibaugh at 16.3 points per game. He also averages 4.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists.
Corder Noun Harder, a 5-9 freshman, scores 9.5 per game and dishes 4.4 assists.
Klayton Van Dyke, a 6-5 freshman, scores 7.9 per game and snags 8.8 rebounds. Ryan Annee, a 6-3 junior averages 4.8 rebounds.
For the Braves, 5-10 guard Trey Shearer remains the state’s scoring leader at 28.2 per game. He’s a .580 field goal shooter and also brings down 5.5 rebounds per game and dishes 4.8 assists.
Cole Watts, a 5-10 senior, averages 20.3 points and .591 from the field. He gets 6.9 rebounds and doles out 3.5 assists.
Masin Shearer, a 5-7 sophomore, averages 7.2 points and 3.2 assists.
Eddie Burgess, a 6-4 junior, has been a major impact player since returning to the lineup eight games ago. He scores 13.3 points per game and is shooting .761 from the field. He also grabs 11.1 rebounds and averages 3.9 assists.
Keota and Montezuma are the lone one-loss teams in the conference, with the Braves having won the head-to-head meeting between the two. North Mahaska has two league losses.