MEDIAPOLIS — There is still the Southeast Conference regular-season title for Fort Madison’s girls basketball team to get in the coming weeks, and coach Landon Bentley made sure to remind the Bloodhounds of that after Monday’s 56-35 nonconference loss to No. 9 (Class 3A) Mediapolis.
“They’ve got their eyes on the prize still,” Bentley said. “They wanted this one as an opportunity for a big win, though.”
Fort Madison (11-6) found out what a lot of teams have found out about the Bullettes (20-0) this season — executing a game plan isn’t easy.
The Bloodhounds led 6-0 after the first 3 minutes, 20 seconds of the game, then gave up a 30-5 run that lasted deep into the second quarter. Mediapolis hit five 3-pointers in that run, and seven overall on the way to building a 36-15 halftime lead.
“It's disappointing in the fact that I felt like we talked about what they wanted to do, and we just got away from our game plan in the second quarter,” Bentley said.
“We wanted to force them to put the ball on the ground, with no catch-and-shoot threes. We're not going to help each other out as much (on defense). We wanted them to drive and try to play one-on-one there, force some tough two-point shots, but they still did a nice job of freeing someone up.”
Ellah Wagenbach hit five 3-pointers on the way to a 19-point game for the Bullettes. Amelia Grier had 18 points, made three 3-pointers, before fouling out.
Mediapolis was 11 of 31 in 3-pointers.
“They’re a great shooting team, and they have so many options,” Bentley said.
Fort Madison also struggled against Mediapolis’ full-court pressure.
“We talked about it,” Bentley said. “We tried to prepare for it, but we didn't execute against it. And when we did execute against it, good things happened. We just didn’t do that enough.”
Bentley gave all of the credit to the Bullettes for the big first-half run.
“I always tip my hat to the other team,” he said. “Their girls knocked down the shots. Their girls swarmed us on defense. So first, kudos to them. They're 20 and zero now for a reason. But I also think some of that was us veering away from the discipline that we needed on offense and on defense.”
Reilynn Turnbull led Fort Madison with 10 points. Halle Menke had eight, and Hadley Wolfe had seven.
Getting a chance to play one of the few undefeated teams remaining in Iowa is an opportunity the Bloodhounds can learn from, Bentley said.
“This is great for us in February,” Bentley said. “Like I said when we beat Burlington on Friday, we're not the same team we were last month, and hopefully we want to keep getting better, even in February. So this is going to make us better. It's going to prepare us to play against really good teams we’ll see in the postseason.”
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