#6 Indian Hills Rallies To Get The Best Of #10 Triton By Three
(some content provided by IHCC sports information)
Ottumwa, IA – A late-game rally powered No. 6 Indian Hills to a thrilling 87-84 non-conference victory over visiting No. 10 Triton College (IL) at the Hellyer Center on Saturday night. The Warriors move to 25-5 overall on the year and extend their winning streak to 11 games.
Saturday night’s contest pitted two potential national tournament teams as both squads entered the game on a combined 21-game winning streak. The Trojans were handed their last defeat on Jan. 12 at the hands of Indian Hills, a 77-74 decision.
Triton built a seven-point halftime advantage and extended the lead to as many as 13 early on in the second half as the Warriors were forced to regroup. With 18:18 to play, J’Vonne Hadley buried a three-point shot to ignite a 12-1 Warrior run and pulled Indian Hills within two, 52-50.
The Warriors stayed within striking distance, but the Trojans continued to maintain its lead until another three from Hadley at the 6:44 mark gave Indian Hills its first lead of the second half, 74-72. With the Warrior full court press activated, Indian Hills forced a number of Triton turnovers down the stretch as a steal and fast break dunk from Yacine Toumi with under 30 seconds to play sealed the win for the Warriors.
Hadley finished the night with a game-high 21 points on 8-14 shooting while connecting on three three-point shots. Hadley also snagged 5 boards. Toumi added 11 points, including nine in the second half, off the bench for the Warriors and led the team with 6 rebounds. Sophomore Braxton Bayless contributed 13 of his 15 points in the second half while adding a team-high five assists. Taj Anderson drained four three-point shots in the first half to finish the night with 12 points.
In the second match-up decided by three points between the two high-caliber programs, both sides provided near identical box scores as Triton shot 50.9 percent on the night compared to Indian Hills’ 50.0 clip. The primary difference centered around turnovers as the Warriors forced 22 Triton miscues. Both Bayless and Davin Zeigler collected three steals in the win.
The win gives the Warriors its third victory over top-10 nationally ranked squads and five over top-25 programs. Head coach Hank Plona improves to 49-3 all-time in the month of February at Indian Hills and has now recorded double-digit winning streaks in each of his seven seasons at the helm of the Warriors.
“This sure felt like a national tournament game to me, I don’t think either team was able to do everything they wanted to do, and that’s what happens when you play another well coached, prepared team with very talented players,” said Warrior HC Hank Plona. “That was a very good win for our basketball program over a very talented team.”
On the key to the win, Plona had this to say, “In the second half we kind of put some full court pressure on them which changed the speed of the game. I felt the faster the game the better for us, and the slower the game the better for them, and we were able to control the tempo and we had J’Vonne Hadley, Taj Anderson, Braxton Bayless, Yacine Toumi and lots of other guys make some plays.”
Triton falls to 24-4 and will begin play next week in the Region 4 tournament, where they enter as the number 1 seed. The Trojans got 14 points and 5 rebounds from Patrick Suemnick to pace Triton to their 7 point half time advantage, finishing with 20 points and 6 boards. Cobie Montgomery and JJ Kalakon each tallied 17 points. Kalakon grabbed a game high 8 caroms and was a monster for IHCC to contain, getting all his points after the break and all but one of his rebounds. Teonta McKeithen added ten points.
Triton first year Head Coach John Clancy on the loss, “I thought that was a high level Junior College game, the first one (a 77-74 home loss to IHCC) was a pretty good game too, but this one stings a little more being plus seven at the half. Our starts to the second halves have been issues for us, but we got that six – oh run (to go up 13) and then kind of stopped playing defense. But you’ve got to give a ton of credit to Indian Hills they made some big time plays. I thought we answered. When they threw a punch, we countered, but they were the last one standing.”
“It was a great environment for our kids and our program tonight, but there are no moral victories,” added Clancy. “We are continuing to build, trying to get this program to Hutch (site of the national tournament), but that was what I thought, a national tournament level type game. We’ll watch the film and get better. We had 15 turnovers in the second half (22 total) and obviously we will work on our press offense. But this group continues to respond, every time we’ve had a loss we’ve gone on a run. We’ve seen tremendous growth and improvement from this group and I think they are hungry to try and get this program to Hutch,” Clancy concluded.
Indian Hills improves to 5-0 all-time against Triton. The win also halted the Trojans 11 game win streak, which started after their Jan. 12 loss to these Warriors in River Grove, IL.
Indian Hills now prepares for postseason play as the No. 1 seed in the upcoming National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) DI Region XI Tournament. Indian Hills will host the winner of No. 2 Southeastern Community College and No. 3 Marshalltown Community College in the region championship game at 7:00 PM on Saturday, Feb. 26 at the Hellyer Center. Southeastern and Marshalltown meet up Wednesday in W. Burlington.
