FORT MADISON - Fort Madison’s girls basketball team closed the regular season on Friday night with a 48-43 win over Keokuk, completing a season sweep by the Bloodhounds over the Southeast Conference champions.
The next game for the Bloodhounds is the Class 4A Region 6 quarterfinal at home on Wednesday night against … Keokuk.
“What a rivalry,” Fort Madison coach Landon Bentley said. “What a rivalry.”
The turnaround from the regular season to the crucible of the postseason is something Bentley reminded his players about after the game.
“Not to dampen the mood, but we reminded them that (the Chiefs) are in their locker room, probably frustrated, and they’re going to come back hungry,” Bentley said.
“I told our players to channel some things in our mind. Our ‘Why?’ ‘Why do you play?’ The hungry moments that we had in our locker room this week. Don’t wait until Wednesday. Channel it in practice. Let’s get after it. Let’s prepare and get ready to go, and give ourselves an opportunity.”
Fort Madison (13-8 overall, 7-3 conference) finished in a second-place tie in the conference with Burlington, one game behind the Chiefs (14-6, 8-2) — a 49-37 loss to Washington last week cost the Bloodhounds a chance to share the league crown.
Fort Madison trailed by nine points at the end of the first quarter and again at halftime, then held Keokuk to just three third-quarter points.
“We’re going to need to start off faster on Wednesday,” said senior Dayonna Davis, who led the Bloodhounds with 22 points, all coming in the final three quarters. “We can’t let them get an early lead on us again.”
Davis, who had just four first-half points, had 11 of the Bloodhounds’ 16 points in the third quarter.
“I've got full trust in her. She's got full trust in me,” Bentley said. “So I told her early, she was forcing shots. I thought in the first quarter, she took three quick (3-pointers) that were open. But I told her, let's get her to the rim. Let's get her to her mid-range and pull-up shots. And she did that. She found rhythm, and when she finds her rhythm, she's hard to stop.”
“I think I just built my confidence up,” Davis said. “And I just had to tell myself, ‘I know I can go score.’ And just being able to attack the basket and seeing the ball go through the net really brings up my confidence.”
The Bloodhounds also slowed Keokuk’s Kendra Boatman in the second half. Boatman, third in the state in scoring at 27.2 points per game, finished with 30 points, but only nine came in the second half.
“We switched the matchup, stuck to our stuff, stuck to the game plan,” Bentley said. “Talked about some sets that they were successful in and how we would defend it differently. Stayed calm, cool and collected.
“Going into halftime down nine, we could have been frustrated, angry. But we said, ‘Hey, we're right there, there’s an opportunity to win. We've been here before. I really thought that we got good looks in the first half, we just needed to finish. And then we hit some big shots in the second half.”
“We switched defensively, and put Hadley (Wolfe) on (Boatman), and had me rebounding more defensively, and I think that threw them off a little bit,” Davis said.
Wolfe added 15 points for the Bloodhounds.
It got emotional for the Bloodhounds after the game, when the team honored assistant coach Kent Bailey, who is retiring after 36 seasons of coaching. Bailey was given a standing ovation by the crowd as the team celebrated with him.
“He’s such a great coach,” Davis said. “I know he’s meant a lot to me.”
“He's been a great mentor for me,” Bentley said. “I know if I talk too much about him. I’ll probably get emotional. But he’s special. He’s special to our program. He’s special to Fort Madison.”
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