The Aplington-Parkersburg basketball teams each earned home wins over Dike-New Hartford Tuesday, as aired on 99 The Wave. The girls won 62-28 and the boys won 62-56. It was AP’s first varsity sweep of the Wolverines since January 11, 2013.
In the girls game, the Falcons scored the first 17 points on their way to a 19-4 lead after the first quarter, and it was never competitive. The Wolverines kept up with AP’s pace in the second quarter, but the Falcons outscored DNH 20-4 in the third quarter. Early in the fourth, the running clock rule went into effect for the rest of the game. AP senior Quinnlyn Schultz says it was a great bounce back.
“We flipped the roles, flipped the scores,” Schultz says. “Looking back, those are the scores that they kind of put up on us. I think the biggest win for us was just turning around after our loss on Friday. We were just disappointed how we shot and we were kind of disappointed in our energy levels. So I think we were just most excited how we turned it back around today. We had a good last couple days of practice, so just to show that. And it was just a good team to beat, and we just knew that they’d still be a really good team. They came out rebounding really well. I thought we handled everything that we could control, and that was good.”
Kolbie Wangsness poured in a career-high 22 points and Eva Walker added 11.
DNH coach Matt Dove on the slow start.
“For whatever reason, it’s kind of been the trend this year, we just were a little slow out of the gates,” Dove says. “Generally, once we get things going, we look pretty good. But then, a lot of times at that point, we’ve dug ourselves too deep in the hole, and you gotta have a lot of things go right at that point to get back in it. So we made some adjustments there in the first half, and the girls, I thought, executed them pretty well. We were doing some things really well. Just didn’t make enough shots in the first half to make it a little more interesting than it was. And then, AP coming out in the second half was, that’s tough. I mean, we’ve talked about how tough our league is. They’re as good as anyone in our league when they play like that, that’s for sure. So tough night for us, but we’ll try to learn and move on.”
Payton Foster led the Wolverines with 13 points.
In the boys game, the Falcons appeared to take control early with a 19-6 first quarter lead. But DNH outscored AP in the second through fourth quarters to make the game competitive. The Wolverines cut the deficit to three, but the Falcons responded with a clutch three and charge taken by freshman Tyler Wedeking.
Senior Caleb Campbell scored a career-high 24 points, and describes how the team gained the edge down the stretch.
“I think just how fast we play, we’re in really good shape,” Campbell says. “We play like we practice, we push it ahead, and I think we’re just prepared for these type of games. We know that we got a little different year than we’ve had in the past, and I think we play to our ability. We play contained and fast like we want to, and I think that’s what got us to the win tonight.”
Wedeking scored 17 and Benny Waller added 14. Colin Meester led DNH with 22 points.
Aplington-Parkersburg will close their December schedule by hosting South Hardin Thursday, and Dike-New Hartford will play at Hudson Friday in their last games of 2024.
Quinnlyn Schultz interview:
Brady Driscol interview:
Matt Dove interview:
Caleb Campbell interview:
Aaron Thomas interview:
