Lady Hawks take loss to No. 9 Bullettes in stride

MEDIAPOLIS — It’s a four-game week for Central Lee’s girls basketball team, and it started with Tuesday’s game against No. 9 (Class 3A) Mediapolis.
The Hawks’ 71-26 loss to the undefeated Bullettes wasn’t going to take away from the big picture for Central Lee coach Taylor Hickey.
“We’ve got a tough week ahead of us, but there are some games that we can win,” Hickey said. “There’s no way we can simulate what Mediapolis does in practice, and we did learn some things tonight. But we just have to go game to game this week.”
Central Lee (8-8 overall, 7-5 SEISC South Division) gets West Burlington on Thursday and Van Buren County on Friday, two teams just ahead of the Hawks in the division standings, and then face Keokuk in a nonconference game on Saturday.
“We’re coming up on the postseason, we have a great opportunity on Thursday night and we have a great opportunity on Friday night,’ Hickey said. “Mediapolis is a hard team to play against, a hard team for us to prepare for. We made some mistakes tonight, but we can learn from them.”
Mediapolis (17-0, 13-0) did to the Hawks what they did to them in a 62-29 win on January 2, using a pressure defense to force Central Lee into turnovers even if the Hawks found a way to get the ball into the frontcourt. Central Lee had 12 turnovers in the first quarter and trailed 18-4.

“Their defense is so good, that even if we did get the ball past midcourt, we would turn the ball over before we could get into our offense,” Hickey said. “And there’s no way we can duplicate that kind of defense in practice.”
The Hawks trailed 31-4 early in the second quarter before finally getting some shots to fall. They were only outscored 8-6 over the final five minutes.
Mediapolis eventually forced a running clock on the 35-point rule midway through the third quarter.
Central Lee got 11 points from Kenna Sandoval and eight from Taylor Jones, two of Hickey’s seniors.
“I really want these seniors to go out on a high note,” Hickey said. “They have worked so hard for four years.”
Grace Holsteen led Mediapolis with 26 points. Ellah Wagenbach added 10.