Bloodhound boys in sync in win over Hawks

FORT MADISON - The word of the day for the Fort Madison/Central Lee intracounty boys' basketball game was simple - Flush.
Central Lee Head Coach Jonny Swanson just wanted to flush his Hawks' 81-53 loss to a very athletic Bloodhound basketball game.
And the Hounds' Kenden Bowie wanted to flush everything else.
Bowie had two dunks – one off an assist from Nolan Guzman who looked back on a fast break in the fourth quarter and saw Bowie in the trail. Guzman tossed the ball up off the left side of the glass and Bowie flew in for the slam to punctuate the Hounds' play all night long.
"We worked a lot in the summer and got to know each other," Bowie said. "We're playing really well together right now."
Fort Madison head Coach Ryan Wilson said it’s nice having the skill set the Hounds have, but its also a matter of making it work.
“It allows you to do some different things. It allows you to play some different defenses and different philosophies, offensively and defensively. On top of that, it makes it a little more fun,” Wilson said. “It gives us some different looks, and I like it.”
The Hounds trailed just once at 8-7 when Central Lee’s Will Hayes hit a jumper just outside of the lane. Senior Brayden Wyrick would hit a 3-ball after the Hawks got a defensive stop in transition at about the 3:50 mark of the 1^st quarter. But Dayton Lamar would score inside and then Jackson Guzman would bury a 3-pointer from the right wing after Lamar shot a behind-the-back pass out of the lane all the way to the perimeter to give Fort Madison a 12-11 lead they wouldn’t surrender the rest of the afternoon.
Fort Madison would push that lead to a 20-16 margin at the end of the first quarter.
Bowie opened the second with a 3 pointer and then Nolan Guzman stole the inbound pass and converted for a 7 point lead. Fort Madison’s press would cause Central Lee some problems up the floor, and another steal resulted in Dear trying to slash through the lane for 7-0 run. Dear’s shot went off the back of the rim and Bowie came flying in from the right side and slammed the rebound for a 27-18 lead.
Central Lee wouldn’t get a bucket until Ward Fraise buried a 3-ball from the left baseline down 29-20. The Hounds would finish the half on a 10-4 run for a 40-27 lead at the break.
Central Lee would miss five of their next six shots out of the locker room while Fort Madison heated up, going 5 of 8 from the field for a 50-35 lead that they would never relinquish.
Wilson said Bowie is starting to round into form in his first full varsity year.

“He's worked hard in the off season. As a junior, he wasn’t able to play a lot but he worked hard in the gym with a personal trainer and honed his craft,” Wilson said.
“He got a lot of shots up and, when you got a kid like that that can use either hand and go to the right just as easy as the left, he can be pretty dangerous. But when he’s hitting from the outside, we’re a whole different team.”
Darious Foy had 12 points in just his third varsity game and made an impression.
“When you put a 6’8” kid in the middle to rebound and finish . . . you saw some of the Central Lee kids having to pull up and, when you have him and Dayton in the lane protecting, it changes things.”
Bowie said he regrets not being able to get on the floor last year, but he’s worked hard over the summer to fine tune his game.
“Obviously, I still want to get in the gym and work on the form, and then everything else kind of comes naturally,” he said.
“This feels a lot better than sitting out,” he said. “I wish I would have this time last year because I feel like I could’ve made the same impact. But everything happens for a reason, and this may be my time to break through.”
Central Lee Head Coach Jonny Swanson said it’s been a rough 24 hours with two games.
"The amount of size they have is hard to match up with. Even their guards are two or three inches taller than us. We played a lot of zone and kind of forced them to shoot well and they did that in the first half."
But Swanson said he was happy with the output of the Hawks and said they have to keep the emotion of Friday’s win over Class 1A No. 6 HTC in mind.
“We can’t let this take away from the feeling we had last night,” Swanson said. “All in all, it was a good weekend. We’ve still got some stuff to work on, we got beat pretty good tonight.”
He said the Hawks have been scoring 50-60 points per game so the offensive output was strong, but Central Lee just couldn’t match up very well with the Hounds' height and athleticism.
Will Hayes had 18 to lead Central Lee (4-4, 5-6). Wyrick and Owen Swan each had a dozen. Julian Dear was in double figures with 10 points for Fort Madison (4-3, 2-1 Southeast Conference).