After a blazing (15-1) start, the Meskwaki Warriors have fallen on some hard times. Due to a lower leg injury to Allis Tahahwah, the Warriors leading scorer has been sidelined the past three games. Tahahwah’s absence has been felt immensely as Meskwaki has gone just (1-2) without him including a blow-out loss vs Colo-Nesco and a nail biting two point defeat at AGWSR. However, with the substate season upon us the Meskwaki Warriors (17-4) hosted the Iowa Valley Tigers (3-17) on Thursday, February 18th, with a healthy Allis Tahahwah back in the starting lineup.

Starters for the Warriors were as follows: Terrell Grant, Tate Bear, Allis Tahahwah, Drake Keahna, and Jarius Bear.

The Tigers countered with a lineup of: Jake Jordan, Blaise Roberts, Gavin Collingwood, Esteban Flores, and Aaron Russ.

The Iowa Valley Tigers reside in the South Iowa Cedar-East conference and come into substate action as the 7th seed in the 1A District 10 bracket. The bracket contains nine teams, but with only eight seeds available, two teams were forced to face off in a preliminary match-up to decide who gets the 8th seed. Iowa Valley narrowly missed the cut as they defeated English Valleys twice and split the two match-ups against HLV earning them a guaranteed spot with the 7th seed. Unfortunately for them, being the 7th seed doesn’t offer anything more than just bragging rights over HLV as they had to match-up with the 2nd seeded Meskwaki Warriors in the first round. Despite having four seniors in the starting lineup the team has struggled to put up points to the tune of just 38 points a game! Forward Gavin Collingwood (13.3 ppg) came into the match-up as the only double-digit Tiger scorer.

The story of the game could be seen from the opening seconds. Freshman center Tate Bear executed an offensive tip over Collingwood right to Allis Tahahwah who cashed it in for an easy lay-up. Tahahwah was eager to make an impact as he provided Meskwaki’s first five points of the game and led all scorers with seven first quarter points. Iowa Valley was left without answers as they were just simply not built to play the high-tempo style of basketball Meskwaki forces on opponents. After one the Warriors held a firm eight point lead at 17-9.

Meskwaki struggled in the second to get shots to fall. That being said, the team added on 15 more points with Terrell Grant leading the show with five. Collingwood, who was held scoreless in the first, could only muster three points in the frame as Meskwaki increased their lead to 32-18 at halftime.

The third frame was the polar opposite of the second. Virtually anything the Warriors put up was going down as they began to run up the score on the Tigers. Tahahwah had his best quarter of the night with 11 points as his wide-range of shot making abilities was just too much for the Tigers to handle. Collingwood did however make his presence known in the third with six points. Unfortunately for Collingwood, his teammates could offer no support as he made up six out of their eight third quarter points.

With the score at 57-26, the Warriors began to empty their bench in the final quarter of play. Kade Brown, Miko Youngbear, Francisco Lasley-Santos, and Noah Seymour all saw significant fourth quarter minutes. Along with Sterling Tyon, the Warriors fourth quarter lineup still managed to put up 16 points in the frame and goose-egged the Tigers in the meantime!

The 73-26 win improved the Warriors to (18-4) on the season and advances them to the quarterfinal round of substate against BGM (13-9). The third seeded Bears were assigned the task of facing the sixth seeded GMG Wolverines (6-15) on a neutral court in Sully. Despite the miss match in records, the Wolverines held a 48-45 lead heading in the fourth quarter of play! The Bears however narrowly escaped with a 68-59 victory thanks in large part to a 23 point fourth quarter effort. The story of the game was the senior duo of #0 Tanner Jansen and #13 Kaiden Fiebelkorn. The two combined for 53 of BGM’s 68 points highlighted by Fiebelkorn’s three point shooting (5/10) and Jansen’s free throws (11/13). The Warriors, especially Terrell Grant and Allis Tahahwah, are familiar with the talented BGM duo due to their quarterfinal substate match-up just two years ago, where the Bears eliminated Meskwaki from the postseason. The game will be played at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23rd, at Meskwaki. Until then, the scoring leaders for this game were as follows: Tahahwah (22), Grant (16), Jarius Bear (13), Tate Bear (7), Youngbear (5), Brown (3), Tyon (3), and Seymour (2).

1A District 10 Bracket

#1 Lynville-Sully 58 vs #8 HLV 33

#4 Belle Plaine 76 vs #5 North Tama 56

#2 Meskwaki 73 vs #7 Iowa Valley 26

#3 BGM 68 vs #6 GMG 59