Lakes Conference 18-19

[VanderHoops]

Will have a good idea of who's the favorite early on:
#1 2A Western @ #3 3A Spirit Lake on 12/4.
Showdown between 2 premier big men: 6'6" Jacob Vis & 6'10" D1 recruit, Owen Coburn.

Western will have a big front line and if they shoot the 3 better this year, they do well this year.
The rest of the conference will be playing for 3rd.

 

[VanderHoops]

Western leads 26-18 at the half.
Coburn in foul trouble early.

 

[VanderHoops]

Western 40-26 after 3.
Looking pretty polished for being their first game.

 

[nwiowahawkeyefan]

Le Mars graduated something like 9 of their top 10 scorers from last season. This has a chance to be a pretty rough season for them, which is unfortunate, as this will be the final year for Le Mars in the Lakes Conference before jumping to the MRAC. Le Mars doesn't really have "down years" - when they do, they still finish above .500 usually - but this could be one. They have started 2-0 in the conference, with wins over Spencer and Cherokee.

 

[go-hawks37]

Tough break if the Vis kid is out for Western. Western held Coburn of Spirit Lake scoreless in the first half. Vis is a big part of there offense and defense. Coburn did manage some late free throws. Lemars has a lot of young talent. Storm Lake is poised to make a run. My guess with the Vis injury these four teams will battle it out with no clear favorite right now. This is second hand information so take it for what it's worth.

 

[jandj]

Tough break if the Vis kid is out for Western. Western held Coburn of Spirit Lake scoreless in the first half. Vis is a big part of there offense and defense. Coburn did manage some late free throws. Lemars has a lot of young talent. Storm Lake is poised to make a run. My guess with the Vis injury these four teams will battle it out with no clear favorite right now. This is second hand information so take it for what it's worth.

What happened to Vis? Has it been confirmed?

 

[docholiday22]

I heard he dislocated his knee cap and was getting an MRI on Monday to see how much damage. Haven't heard if he's able to come back this year or not.

 

[mtdew_fever]

Is Spirit Lake really that good? They beat a good Class 1A school in Newell-Fonda, but not by that much.

In general, I think the Lakes Conference is looking to be down this year.

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

I would definitely agree the Lakes is down this year. Western is a different team without Vis. Dislocated knee cap is the early diagnosis. Last I heard, they are waiting for the swelling in his knee to go down to evaluate the damage and see how long he'll be out. If he makes it back for tournaments WC will be a tough out. If not, I don't see them getting out of NW Iowa. Too many good teams in 2A. That being said, I still think Western wins the Lakes, even without Vis.

 

[go-hawks37]

Spirit Lake lost to Spencer last night. That hasn't happened in quite a few years. Only scored 33 points. Have a friend from Esterville who said they should have beat them the week before if they hadn't missed some late free throws. Spirit Lake is #41 according to bc Moore. Ouch!

 

[VanderHoops]

I would definitely agree the Lakes is down this year. Western is a different team without Vis. Dislocated knee cap is the early diagnosis. Last I heard, they are waiting for the swelling in his knee to go down to evaluate the damage and see how long he'll be out. If he makes it back for tournaments WC will be a tough out. If not, I don't see them getting out of NW Iowa. Too many good teams in 2A. That being said, I still think Western wins the Lakes, even without Vis.

Word is that Vis will be back much sooner than expected!

Some senior leadership is keeping the team positive and the absence of Vis is turning some support players into game changers. Both shooting and defensive intensity have been much improved.
Outlook is much better than a week ago for a run into the post-season.

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

Word is that Vis will be back much sooner than expected!

Some senior leadership is keeping the team positive and the absence of Vis is turning some support players into game changers. Both shooting and defensive intensity have been much improved.
Outlook is much better than a week ago for a run into the post-season.

Zevenbergen had a great game against Storm Lake tonight. If Vis is back mid January they are going to be really good. Double figures from 4 guys tonight. The minutes the younger guys are putting in this year will be really valuable next season.

Storm Lake is also really solid. Not sure how they'll fare in the 3A post season, but it's going to be a battle when WC travels there in late January.

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

Can anyone give insight to the SL, Western game? Saw an article about how Storm Lake can play dirty at times and wondered how they played against Western and other teams as well or if it was a one game incident.

"The nightcap was a game cluttered with too many verbal assaults and intimidating antics to count. A technical foul was called on a Storm Lake player, who then had to be restrained by Storm Lake school officials from attacking Cherokee players going into their locker room at the half.

Still, despite unprovoked and unacceptable actions by the player, the senior returned to start the second half."

- Chronicle Times

I retracted the young man's name from the quote.

From the bleachers, I never saw anything that resembled dirty play from Storm Lake. I watched the JV boys and both Varsity games and it all looked clean to me. With their Sudanese and Latino kids, it makes me wonder if there was maybe some racial crap happening on the floor or maybe coming from the stands. They played hard and just about pulled the upset. To be honest, I've seen a lot more rough/dirty play from Cherokee over the years than I have from Storm Lake.

 

[iowalongs230]

Just out of curiosity, does the Storm Lake area have a population of Sudanese and Latino people? Or are these foreign exchange students?

 

[sarcastico]

Just out of curiosity, does the Storm Lake area have a population of Sudanese and Latino people? Or are these foreign exchange students?

Storm Lake has a large immigrant population due to packing plants. NY Times even wrote an article about it;

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/business/economy/storm-lake-iowa-immigrant-workers.html

 

[nwiowahawkeyefan]

Storm Lake beat Le Mars. Le Mars was 26-0 against Storm Lake in their last 26 meetings before Storm Lake knocked off the bulldogs a couple weeks ago.

LeMars is 21-0 against Cherokee in their last 21 meetings.
LeMars also has a 25+ game win streak against ELC I believe.

I don't foresee Cherokee/ELC ending those streaks in LeMars's last season in the Lakes, but if there was a year for it to happen, it would be this year.

 

[go-hawks37]

Lemars is way down this year. Couple decent scorers but lack size. Starters all about 6 feet. The one positive for Lemars is that they have arguably the best coach in the conference. Esterville and Cherokee could knock Lemars off this year. Storm Lake gets Spirit Lake at home after the break. If Avis returns it's there title to lose.

 

[VanderHoops]

One unintended consequence of Jacob Vis being out for Western is that some other players are really tuning up their offensive game.
Van Tol is shooting over 50% on 3's & has been knocking down some big shots.
Senior post Broek is finally playing with some fire in his belly & a bunch of good juniors have stepped up their game.
They can go with a 6'5", 6'6", 6'5" front line even without Vis.

 

[go-hawks37]

Was at Wartburg to watch my Waverly Go-Hawks take on Spirit Lake. Waverly got the win fairly easily. Excellent team defense and ball movement by Waverly. Spirit Lake was stagnant and they had lots of turnovers. Spirit Lake had trouble scoring all day. Sounds like Spirit Lake lost at Storm Lake last night as well.

 

[theocia]

Was at Wartburg to watch my Waverly Go-Hawks take on Spirit Lake. Waverly got the win fairly easily. Excellent team defense and ball movement by Waverly. Spirit Lake was stagnant and they had lots of turnovers. Spirit Lake had trouble scoring all day. Sounds like Spirit Lake lost at Storm Lake last night as well.

Coburn is dominant against smaller teams, but has no supporting cast when there's size in the post to slow him down.

 

[theocia]

One unintended consequence of Jacob Vis being out for Western is that some other players are really tuning up their offensive game.
Van Tol is shooting over 50% on 3's & has been knocking down some big shots.
Senior post Broek is finally playing with some fire in his belly & a bunch of good juniors have stepped up their game.
They can go with a 6'5", 6'6", 6'5" front line even without Vis.

They're still good without him & can win the conference, but they have a brutal non-conference schedule and will probably drop a couple of them if Vis can't return before the post-season.

Keep hearing mixed reports on his recovery, but sounds like he'll be playing (at less than 100%) by tourney time.

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

5 of Western's 8 wins have been 5 points or less, including a 10 point comeback over Unity last night, so they've been playing good enough to win. The tough non-con will be a benefit and I don't think this team will be intimidated by anyone, but unless Vis returns and is at least 80-90%, I don't see them getting out of NW Iowa in the tourney.

Big game at LeMars tonight. Wouldn't be surprised to see them come out flat after an emotional comeback last night.

 

[VanderHoops]

...Big game at LeMars tonight. Wouldn't be surprised to see them come out flat after an emotional comeback last night.

Good call!
LeMars is down this year, but they're the wrong team to show up leg-weary against & it showed.
Coach Irwin put together a nice game plan & Western didn't step up.

Overall, I'm still happy with how they've played without their team leader & they still haven't lost to a 2A opponent.

 

[NWIowaSioux]

Good call!
LeMars is down this year, but they're the wrong team to show up leg-weary against & it showed.
Coach Irwin put together a nice game plan & Western didn't step up.

Overall, I'm still happy with how they've played without their team leader & they still haven't lost to a 2A opponent.

Well that could be partially because they only play 3 separate 2A opponents

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

What happened to Coburn from Spirit Lake? Left hand/wrist in a cast. With our without him, Spirit Lake is struggling top to bottom. JV boys were down 19-0 to start and didn't score for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half.

 

[go-hawks37]

Coburn tore ligaments in his hand and is out for the year. They also have a couple other varsity players out for different reasons I’m told. The junior class has almost no kids participating in basketball and the couple that are out are not all conference type players or are ineligible. There were high hopes for the JV group as last year as freshman they were nearly undefeated. Not sure what’s going on this year as they have had trouble beating anyone all year. Dr. Smith did step down as head of the program last year. Spirit Lake with Coburn had lost to Spencer, Storm Lake and Cherokee already and squeaked out a last second win against ELC. Those type of loses haven’t happened in years. So it’s not like things were perfect before Coburn was injured. The new coach is a good young coach who will do things the right way. New head coach has had plenty to deal with and will need strong assistants around him. No idea what he has for help.

 

[nwiowahawkeyefan]

With LeMars's win over Spirit Lake, and Hull Western Christian's loss at Storm Lake, Le Mars is guaranteed at least a share of the Lakes Conference crown. Le Mars will travel to HWC on the 5th to see if they can win it outright or if they will share the crown.

LeMars struggled a bit in the first part of the season, but they have seemed to turn it around. A Lakes Conference title in their final season as part of the conference is a nice way to say goodbye. LeMars girls also are likely going to win a share of the Lakes Conference title for the first time in a while, as well. Will miss the Lakes Conference.

 

[NWIAHawkfan]

With Western beating LeMars last night, do Western and LeMars share the Lakes Championship, or how did it break turn out?

 

[VanderHoops]

With Western beating LeMars last night, do Western and LeMars share the Lakes Championship, or how did it break turn out?

Pretty sure its a 3-way tie for the Lakes title: Western, LeMars, Storm Lake.
No conference tourney, so no need for tie-breakers (and they all split & lost to the #4 Spencer anyway)
Really even at the top (and Spencer was only 1 game out)

Really impressive shooting performance out of LeMars senior Irwin.

Was good to see Jacob Vis in 1st return to the court for a few limited minutes since game 2. Rusty, but will be a factor come tourney time.