Hawks fly past Colfax-Mingo to stay unbeaten

SULLY — It wasn’t too long ago that Lynnville-Sully senior Preston Rodibaugh was the best player on the Hawks boys’ basketball team.

He led the squad in scoring as a sophomore and was at the top last year but only played in seven games.

This year, he’s nine months removed from ACL surgery and is still trying to find his groove.

A 16-point effort in a 75-18 home win over Colfax-Mingo on Tuesday may be the night Rodibaugh needed to return to his old form.

And the best part about the process is that his teammates have caught up to him and the Hawks are now 25-7 since the beginning of last season.

“It’s finally good to be back after an eight-month recovery,” said Rodibaugh, who averaged a team-best 15.4 points per game two seasons ago. “As I made my way back, the rest of the guys got so much better so it’s been nice. We just feed off each other and we all know any one of us could be the guy on any given night.”

Tuesday belonged to Rodibaugh and Keegan DeWitt, who scored a career-high 17 points off the bench.

The Hawks scored the game’s first 11 points against Colfax-Mingo, led 22-4 after one quarter and cruised to the easy South Iowa Cedar League win.

“One of the things we put on the board was to set the tone early,” L-S head boys basketball coach Nick Harthoorn said. “We wanted to come out, play hard defense, rebound the basketball and just let them know that we were ready to get after it tonight.”

Klayton Van Dyke scored six of the game’s first eight points and Conner Maston buried a 3-pointer to push the lead to 11-0.

After Harrison Rhone got C-M on the board with a trey, Van Dyke and DeWitt scored on putbacks and Rodibaugh scored inside on back-to-back possessions.

DeWitt ended the period with a 3 and made two more triples in the second. The first one gave the Hawks a 25-6 lead and the hosts went up 36-11 with his second trey.

“We have a lot of depth on the bench and it’s always nice to give the starters a break,” DeWitt said. “I don’t go in and just throw shots up. I try to move the ball around and get the offense going. If I have a shot, I take it and if they keep falling I keep shooting.”

Harthoorn doesn’t think his team has shot the ball well from outside yet this season, but the Hawks made nine 3-pointers in the win over C-M. They also shot 58 percent from the floor, out-rebounded the Tigerhawks 37-15 and turned the ball over just six times.

In the second quarter, Maston and Blake Van Wyk buried back-to-back treys to go with DeWitt’s two triples.

“It felt better tonight and it felt like we were able to catch a little bit of a rhythm and hopefully that will carry over,” Harthoorn said about the 3-point shots.

Lynnville-Sully (7-0 overall, 5-0 in the SICL) ended the half on a 10-0 run with six coming from DeWitt and the other four coming on back-to-back baskets inside by Dawson James.

Rodibaugh opened the third with back-to-back buckets to kick on the continuous clock. All nine of Corder Noun Harder’s points came in the period, too.

“It was a long process,” Rodibaugh said. “I’m not as quick and I won’t jump as high now, but I think I can still impact the game just as much.”

The Hawks outscored C-M 19-2 in the fourth. Six of those points came from Rodibaugh and James added a 3-point play and a putback.

Rodibaugh finished with 16 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.

“I feel like (Preston’s) only going to get stronger as the season goes on,” Harthoorn said. “His brother, last year, started off the season slow and picked up steam as the year went on. We’ll hope that happens with Preston. He had a great night tonight.”

DeWitt added three rebounds and two assists to his career-high 17 points.

“He’s starting to catch his rhythm,” Harthoorn said about DeWitt. “He didn’t get as much playing time early as I would have liked to get him, but now that we’ve had a few more opportunities to work him in, I think he’s starting to get comfortable.”

Van Dyke finished with 10 points, five rebounds and three blocks, Noun Harder added nine points, five rebounds and five assists and James registered nine points and three boards.

Maston collected eight points, eight rebounds and four assists, Van Wyk chipped in three points, three assists and two steals and Lucas Sieck tallied three points, two rebounds and two assists. Carson Maston also grabbed two boards.

“Our bench is huge. They come in with great enthusiasm and they know their roles,” Rodibaugh said. “We are an unselfish team and whoever has it going, we want them to keep it going.”

Jared Lewis led Colfax-Mingo with eight points and two rebounds, Rhone added five points and two boards and Carter Gibson grabbed two rebounds and dished out three assists.

Cael Bracewell had three rebounds and two steals and Conner Wood and Elias Hostetter each pulled down two boards.

The Tigerhawks (0-6, 0-5) shot 16 percent from the floor and were 2-of-18 from 3.

Notes: Lynnville-Sully scored its fifth straight win over the Tigerhawks and it is 13-2 against C-M since 2015. … The Hawks are 7-0 just three seasons after finishing 5-16. That is the program’s only losing season since at least 2006-07. … Rodibaugh is averaging 8.6 points per game this season after scoring 13.6 points per game in seven games last winter. … L-S junior starter Mitchell Miller missed the game due to a foot injury. Senior Kale Ehresman also is out for the Hawks due to a concussion. He caught an elbow in practice.