DONNELLSON – Central Lee’s Brayden Wyrick outscored Fort Madison 13-9 to start Saturday’s matinee at Central Lee High School. Wyrick would go on to score 21 points in the first half, but the junior’s performance wasn’t enough for the Hawks to pull off the upset over the Bloodhounds.
Fort Madison’s strong 4th quarter sparked a 63-55 non-conference game that capped an intra-county round robin that wraps up Saturday when the Holy Trinity Crusaders play Fort Madison in the Hound Dome in another afternoon affair.
Wyrick would lead all scorers with 29 after the Hounds’ Hunter Cresswell got the assignment of containing Wyrick in the second half, and did a pretty good job, according to Fort Madison Head Coach Ryan Wilson.
“We went to a straight up man and face guard on him to take him away,” Wilson said. “Cresswell did a good job, but Wyrick’s a great player. He knocked down some shots and we had hands in his face all day. We gotta work through those situations and be prepared because we’ve got some good kids coming up - Luke Hellige, Diego Garcia, a bunch more down the road.”
Wyrick started on fire, scoring the first seven points of the game. Fort Madison would come back on a 7-0 run of its own sparked by Dayton Lamar’s four points and Cresswell's put-back off a Julian Dear miss.
Wyrick would then hit back-to-back 3-balls at the 2:45 mark to put Central Lee back up by six and they would hold a four-point 18-14 lead after the first quarter.
The Hawk would score six of Central Lee’s seven points in the second quarter, but Fort Madison’s Leif Boeding led a second quarter surge that gave the Hounds a lead they would never relinquish. Boeding hit both ends of a freethrow set at 7:15 in the second quarter to give Fort Madison a 19-8 lead. Senior Carson Rashid hit from just inside the 3-point arch for a 21-18 lead. Wyrick would answer on the next possession from the far right baseline before Boeding countered at the other end with a 3-ball.
Fort Madison would extend the lead to 26-21 on a Dear rebound and bucket. Wyrick would score again for his 21st point of the half with 1:41 left to cut the lead to one after a Chase Johnson freethrow and a Hawks’ steal.
Lamar would score with 1:07 left on a tip-in of a Dear miss for a 28-25 halftime lead. Lamar had nine in the first half for Fort Madison and finished with 17. Cresswell and Boeding each had a dozen for Fort Madison. The Hounds were without the services of sophomore 6th man, Nolan Guzman who’s dealing with a bum hip, so junior Kenden Bowie slipped into the rotation after rejoining the active squad after the holiday. Bowie is in the bloodline of former NBA player Sam Bowie.
Bowie scored six points off the bench, but Wilson said he’s an extraordinary athlete who just needs more playing time for his confidence to come around.
“Kenden’s a special talent. He shoots well but we have to build some confidence in him. We’ve talked about letting him play a couple quarters jv, just to get some game experience today, so that might happen. He’s athletic and in the family of Sam Bowie so there’s some things here.”
The Hounds’ shifted senior Cresswell over to faceguard Wyrick in the second half and that worked, holding the junior to eight second-half points. Fort Madison outscored the Hawks 17-12 in the third quarter led by Cresswell’s five points. Lamar missed a two-handed dunk at the buzzer off the back side of the rim and the Hounds held a 45-37 lead going into the final quarter.
Wyrick opened the scoring for Central Lee with a 3-ball, but Fort Madison hit 4-of-7 from the field to open the period and extend its lead to 11 points on a Rashid floater in the lane. Cresswell would hold Wyrick scoreless the final five minutes and the Hounds pulled away shooting five of six from the field down the stretch to put the game away.
Central Lee shifted to a more slashing offense with Cresswell chasing Wyrick all around and got some production from senior Aden Ross and Owen Swam. Wyrick said he was happy the added attention freed up his teammates.
“They were starting to play face up on me. I was just trying to get open and get good looks. Some didn’t fall in the second half,” Wyrick said.
“It’s part of the game especially if it’s one of their better players, which Cresswell is. It makes me happy because then that opens things up for my teammates. I wanted their coach to have to concentrate on me a little more so things would open up for the others.”
Central Lee Head Coach Kritter Hayes said he was disappointed for the Hawks, who played well. He said they expected the Hounds to make adjustments to take Wyrick out of the game.
“We expected that. They’re going to start digging down on him a little more. He got hot in the first half on the perimeter. But we know he can’t live out there all the time. He has to have a good mix for us to be able to win some games,” Hayes said.
“He’s been shooting the ball really well in practice this week. He was really on fire the other day, so I was surprised he came out so cold against HTC on Friday.”
Trailing by just six with 2:40 left in the game, Hayes shifted the offense to try to attack the rim rather than winning it from long range.
“We just wanted to attack the rim and go with a little two-man game with Owen (Swan) and Brayden and see where we had openings. Ross was able to get to the rim a couple times. He’s not 100% right now, but we were trying to attack and get to the freethrow line and then get any 3s we could get.”
Swan finished with 13 points and Ross had nine for the Hawks who fall to 5-5 overall. They stand at 3-4 in SEI Superconference South Division. They host Mediapolis on Tuesday and then travel to New London Friday night.
Fort Madison improves to 4-5 overall and 2-2 in the Southeast Conference. They travel to Keokuk Tuesday and then to Fairfield Friday before welcoming in the HTC Crusaders on Saturday afternoon in the annual crosss-town matchup.
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