Boys basketball: G-LR aces rematch with S-O

But Friday’s showdown between the two Siouxland Conference rivals didn’t go much better than the first meeting. George-Little Rock took a quick 7-0 lead and never looked back en route to a 72-51 win in George.

Sibley-Ocheyedan’s Grant Brouwer, who went off on Harris-Lake Park on Monday with 22 third-quarter points in an 82-71 win, didn’t have the magic this time. Meanwhile, the Mustangs exhibited cool efficiency around the paint and hit their share of bombs, too, to take a 19-12 advantage into the second quarter where they methodically increased their lead.

Junior Landon Jumbeck led George-Little Rock with 24 points, Lucas Nagel added 17 and Jayden Mauldin had 10.

Brouwer, a lanky junior, paced Sibley-Ocheyedan with 15 points and teammate Preston Marco had 10.

With the win, George-Little Rock improved to 8-4 on the season while dropping Sibley-Ocheyedan to 5-7.

Throughout the game, S-O had trouble finishing. But, of course, some of that could be attributed to the taller Mustangs’ defense.

“They are an improved team, by leaps and bounds,” said G-LR co-head coach Brian Luenberger after the game. “We really challenged our guys this week to get after it defensively.”

“I was disappointed with our effort,” said Sibley-Ocheyedan coach Kent Douma. “We’re a lot better team than we showed tonight. … We had seven or eight shots under the rim that didn’t go in. Not that we would have won anyway, but we’re better than that.”

Things started off badly for the visitors. Brouwer drilled a 3-point shot early but was whistled for traveling. Meanwhile, the home team ran off seven straight points to begin the game.

Sibley-Ocheyedan made some progress to begin the second quarter. A 15-footer by Brouwer cut the margin to 24-18, and a free throw by Brouwer at 3:36 made it 24-19. But George-Little Rock scored the last seven points of the second quarter to take a 33-21 lead into halftime.

G-L outscored S-O 21-14 in the third quarter, going inside and outside efficiently while the Generals continued to struggle putting the ball in the basket.

Down 19 points to start the fourth quarter, the Generals had too much ground to make up and too little time.

It was a satisfying win for the Mustangs.

“We took one on the chin on Friday against MOC,” said Luenberger. “We had four days of practice that we wanted to challenge ourselves. It was good to play well tonight because it shows the kids that when you play hard, good things can happen.”

Luenberger said Sibley-Ocheyedan’s collapsing zone gave his team some trouble in the first half. But the Mustangs solved it eventually.

Meanwhile, Douma’s offense was too inconsistent.

“We felt like we did not give them a very good look of who we were when we were at home (in the first meeting). We just gotta regroup and head back. When you play in the Siouxland Conference, you don’t get a night off,” said the S-O mentor.