Hawks can't hold off 4th quarter Mepo rally

DONNELLSON — Central Lee boys basketball coach Jonny Swanson had to take a couple of looks at the scoreboard after the 59-54 loss to Mediapolis on Friday night.

The math of how the Bulldogs took control in the fourth quarter wasn’t good.

Mediapolis (6-2 overall, 5-1 SEISC South Division) gained sole possession of second place in the South Division by scoring 27 points in the fourth quarter, erasing a 40-32 lead that the Hawks (5-2, 4-2) had 25 seconds into the quarter.

“Twenty-seven is way too many,” Swanson said. “We are way too good of a defensive team to give up 27. We've got to find a way when, when we don't have all the energy or whatever, we have to find ways to get stops. Credit to them. They made shots. I mean, that's a good team. They run really good actions and things like that. But we've got to get a stop, and when we do get stops, we have to get the rebound, and we didn’t do that at times.”

Central Lee had a 42-37 lead with 6:35 to play before Mediapolis went on a 14-2 run. The Hawks were able to get within 53-51 with a minute to play after Will Hayes converted a three-point play, but Mediapolis’ William Worrall hit a 3-pointer deep into the shot clock on the Bulldogs’ next possession, then converted two free throws with 20 seconds left that sealed the win.

Mediapolis built an 11-2 lead in the first 3:20 of the game and led 15-9 at the end of the first quarter, but Central Lee outscored the Bulldogs 20-9 in the second quarter. The Hawks’ defense held Mediapolis to just 17 points in the second and third quarters.

“The first quarter, we didn't come out ready to play,” Swanson said. “That was pretty clear. We let them kind of dictate the pace of the game. Then we kind of got our way back into it. Second and third quarter, it kind of felt like we took control of the game a little bit. Felt like we were in the driver's seat. Then they amped up their pressure, and again, they just kind of outhustled us, outworked us, got offensive rebounds and things like that. And defensively, we just made way too many mistakes.”

Hayes was especially effective inside, leading the Hawks with 23 points.

“He had a really good game,” Swanson said. “He finished at the rim really well, which is what we need. We need that consistently, though. So if we can get him going offensively like that consistently, he's a hard guy to stop. And when teams start doubling him, we can get our shooters going.”

Owen Swan added 16 points for the Hawks.

Max Griffin had a game-high 29 points for Mediapolis. Worrall had 12 points.

“Offensively, I think we looked OK for most of the game,” Swanson said. “We missed way too many shots at the rim, which has been kind of a common occurrence for us this year. But really, we’ve just got to play four quarters of really good defense. We've done that for most of this year, but tonight we just didn't get that done.”