Midwest Live! (Omaha): Sunday Recaps
17U Semifinal: 10:10 — Kansas City Spurs 78 vs Kingdom Hoops-Mosley 68
This was about as well played of a game by both teams as you’ll see at the grassroots ranks. Shots were dropping with consistency, passes were crisp and accurate and focus was intact. At the break, it was close, Kansas City Spurs led 45-42, but they would bust it wide-open by late in the game, leading by double-digits for a big chunk of the second half. Kingdom Hoops would claw back in it late, and get to within 73-68, but the seven-player team eventually would run out of gas. Spencer Jones from Bishop Meige in Roland, Kansas (just outside of Kansas City) was utterly impressive for the Spurs. The 6’6 shooting guard led the way with 24 points. The calm and collected Australian Derek Emilifonewu — from West Des Moines Valley — capped his strong weekend by scoring a team-high 16 points for Kingdom Hoops.
17U: 11:15 — Minnesota Heat-Nelson 74 vs Iowa Dynasty 67
It was a valiant effort by Dante Eldridge and Co., but in the end, the Minnesota Heat were able to come away with the hard-fought win. Eldridge, a 5’9 point guard from Iowa City West, notched a game-high 27 points in the loss. He was scoring from everywhere and probing the defense at will. Minnesota Heat is one of the largest and more well-run programs in Minnesota (a state that has seemingly endless amounts of teams). Another Iowa City West guy, Jacob Klein, was impressive, canning four 3s and scoring 16 points in the narrow loss.
16U: 12:20 — Semifinal: All Iowa Attack Black 84 vs Kansas City Spurs Silver 76
The All Iowa Attack program is very deep this season among the class of 2020; and that being the case, the second unit — All Iowa Attack Black — is a very formidable squad. They continued to storm through the black division field (red division is the top division), by shredding the nets for 84 points and beating this good Spurs squad by eight. Tyler Sansgaard from Nevada was torrid in this one, netting eight 3s and scoring 26 in the win. It was a coming out party for Waterloo East sophomore DaQuavion Walker; he was a menace on D and scored 21 points to help secure the impressive semifinals win.
17U: 1:25 — Iowa Cornsharks Select 82 vs 43 Hoops 65
What an impressive performance this was for the Iowa Cornsharks. Even with new pieces on the team, they looked like a unit that had been playing together all the time for several years, rather than a team that’s thrown together for a few months out of the year. The passing was ridiculous, and the alley-oop off the backboard from Logan Peters to newcomer Mike Barker (from Woodward Academy) was an apt encapsulation of what this ‘Sharks team is capable of. It’s not like the Minneapolis-based program wasn’t good, they were pretty darn good. It’s just the guys from Iowa were too savvy for them in this one. Mason Storey had a real nice game for the ‘Sharks, he canned four 3s and led the way with 14 points. Peters was the MVP, scoring 12 and doing a little bit of everything else to help secure the impressive win.
16U: 2:30 — Minnesota Heat-Lang 67 vs All Iowa Attack Black 56
If it wasn’t for Jameson Sexton going off for six 3s and 20 second half points then the Attack guys would have had a good shot of winning this black division title. But Sexton — a sophomore from Mound Westonka in Minnesota — did have 3 after 3 after 3 in the second half, and broke the title game wide-open for Minnesota Heat-Lang. It was a nice weekend, still, from All Iowa Attack, they went 4-1 and finished runners-up in the 16U black division. Tyler Sansgaard was great, Vasko Novakovic was good, and Waterloo East point guard DaQuarian Walker proved to be the most exciting breakout player of the spring so far.