The Aplington-Parkersburg basketball teams will be back in action for the first time in a week when they host East Marshall for a North Iowa Cedar League crossover doubleheader Friday.
The Falcon girls (7-2, 2-1 NICL-C) will look to build on the momentum of a three-game win streak, which included a 51 percent shooting performance in last week’s win at Grundy Center. Head Coach Brady Driscol says after giving up several offensive rebounds in that game, the message is clear moving forward.
“We’re focused on rebounding and keeping people out of the lane a little bit,” Driscol says. “Obviously still have work to do there, but I’m confident in them and they know what we need to work on and what’s our weakness right now. It’s things we’ve got to work on going forward, so I’m confident we’ll get the job done and they’ll do a better job going forward. But those are two things that we’ve got to keep keep pounding away at, and that’ll give us our best chance for success in the future.”
East Marshall (2-9, 0-3 NICL-W) has lost seven straight, including blowouts against South Tama and Union to begin January. No player averages more than six points per game.
The Falcon boys (7-1, 3-0 NICL-C) are coming off their first loss of the season at Grundy Center last week. After committing 23 turnovers in the loss, Head Coach Aaron Thomas hopes to use the productivity of the long break to springboard into the stretch run.
“We didn’t get stale, I thought, and we worked how we wanted to guard Grundy Center,” Thomas says. “And I think for the most part, when we didn’t turn it over for run out layups, we did a very good job of that. So just sound things up offensively. I knew with Grundy’s defense being so physical that we were gonna have to be crisp. We’ve still got work to do there. But all in all, it was a good break for us. I think we got better.”
East Marshall (4-5, 1-2 NICL-W) has won two straight, including over Union and South Tama to begin January.
Action will start at 6:15 p.m.
