BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR
WEST BURLINGTON - Class 2A schools are typically supposed to win over Class 1A schools and that happened pretty good Friday in West Burlington.
Class 1A Holy Trinity suffered its first loss of the year at West Burlington when the Falcons put a beginning-to-end 74-43 workover on the Crusaders in Southeast Iowa Superconference boys action.
The Falcon's Austin Applegate, stationed regularly outside the 3-point the line, buried a 3-pointer to get the game going and then Falcon senior post Marvion Jackson rattled home a dunk off a steal at half court to set an early tone.
The Falcons would have the Crusaders on their heels early racing to a 19-2 lead half way into the first quarter and would never look back.
Holy Trinity's Vasin Thurman, who was averaging over 25 per outing, was held to just 13 on the night.
HTC got just six open looks from the field in the first quarter converting on two - a bucket by Tyler Snaadt to open the scoring in the first quarter for the visitors, and a bucket by Chandler Rung in transition with about a minute left in the first with the Falcons already holding a 25-6 lead.
West Burlington would stretch that lead 30 by the end of the first half at 47-17.
HTC head coach John Hellige said the Crusaders came out a little timid and worried about the physical play of the Falcons.
"I told the boys this was a chance to see where we're at. We started 3-0 and this game was a chance for us to see where the bar is," Hellige said.
"West Burlington is a strong 2A team and if we want to make a run in the post season, we're going to see teams like this that are long and athletic."
Holy Trinity was also chilly from the free throw line converting just 10 of 21 on the night and coming up short on seven front ends of one-and-one situations.
"I can't explain all the missed free throws," he said. "We are typically a very good free throw shooting team and we work on them all the time. I don't know if it was just some tired legs and/or the ruggedness of a strong physical team, but we probably left 10 or 12 free throws out there.
Thurman led HTC with 13 points in the night all working inside against 6-5 posts Jackson and Ethan Eilers.
"They're very physical, but once we started playing with some more confidence and not worrying about Jackson blocking shots, we played better."
Jason Thurman had nine on the night, all in the second half. Snaadt had eight and Rung chipped in with seven. Kaiden Medland had three, Mikey DiPrima added a bucket and Maddox Rung added a free throw.
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