Posted: Jan 20, 2025
By JAKE RYDER, TIMES-REPUBLICAN
Marshalltown Community College men's basketball put together an impressive rally but couldn't catch Iowa Lakes in a 77-73 loss at the MCC Student Activity Center on Wednesday night.
A 10-2 run in the second half put MCC in a 69-58 hole with just under five minutes to play.
The Tigers answered with a 13-5 rally, capped by a Justice Small bucket as he was fouled with 16.5 seconds left. The free throw glanced off the rim and was almost up for grabs for MCC, but deflected to Iowa Lakes leading to a Laker free throw to push it to a two possession game. A quick setup for a long Jayden Hill 3-pointer from the top of the key rattled around the rim and out, with Iowa Lakes grabbing the rebound with four seconds left and closing the game out at the free-throw line.
MCC fell to 7-11 overall, a fourth-consecutive loss.
"I liked that we played for 40 minutes tonight, I don't feel like we've done that for several games now," MCC head coach Ryan Flack said. "The guys got down and instead of throwing the towel in, they played hard to the end."
Small, MCC's leading scorer, missed considerable time with foul trouble in both halves, saddled with two fouls eight minutes into the first half and four less than eight minutes in. He still was one of three Tigers leading the way in scoring with 14 points, along with Tre'von Coney and Ahmed Ibrahim – all three accounted for every point of the 13-point second-half rally.
"[Small in foul trouble] was super impactful," Flack said. "It took that really good defender guarding him and put that guy on someone else. He's a big-time player for us, and it hurt not having him on the court. We probably should've gone to zone sooner to protect him from some fouling but we thought starting out in man was the best thing to do and he got a couple quick fouls early that he probably shouldn't have got, but that was due to him.
"We had some guys step up, Lucas Frohwein played very limited minutes this year and we got some great minutes from him in the first half; DJ [Hamilton] is a little under the weather but he came in and gave us good minutes as well, hit a couple of shots that helped us stay right there in the first half."
Iowa Lakes scored eight in a row to go up 28-22 in the first half and never trailed again, even if the lead fluctuated at times.
"We got a lot of stops in the first half and just couldn't make any shots," Flack said. "We did play harder today, we moved better with purpose but just missed a few assignments, we have to make sure every screen, every cut is there and I don't feel like we did that on a few things."
MCC is back home next Monday against the Cornell College JV before returning to conference play at Southeastern CC on Jan. 22.
"It's nice to get a few days off," Flack said. "We'll watch the film and get back to practice to work on some of these things."
For more coverage of MCC Athletics, click here: https://www.timesrepublican.com/sports/local-sports/2025/01/lakers-elude-mcc-comeback/
