maly, too: Valley's Boys' Basketball Team [14-8] Defeats Fort Dodge, 50-44, Tonight In a Substate Tournament Game At the Bill Coldiron Fieldhouse On the Valley Campus In West Des Moines. Before the Game, Valley Coach Jeff Horner Tweeted, 'Never know when it could be ur last. Lay it on the line.' The Tigers' Next Game Is At Ankeny Centennial At 7 p.m. Next Tuesday In the Substate Finale. Centennial [17-4] Crushed Ames, 75-41, Tonight.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Valley's Boys' Basketball Team [14-8] Defeats Fort Dodge, 50-44, Tonight In a Substate Tournament Game At the Bill Coldiron Fieldhouse On the Valley Campus In West Des Moines. Before the Game, Valley Coach Jeff Horner Tweeted, 'Never know when it could be ur last. Lay it on the line.' The Tigers' Next Game Is At Ankeny Centennial At 7 p.m. Next Tuesday In the Substate Finale. Centennial [17-4] Crushed Ames, 75-41, Tonight.

Photo courtesy of West Des Moines Valley High School on Facebook

Retweeted by Carlo Marble

‏@vhstigers

50-44 tigers advance!

Retweeted by VHS Boys Basketball

‏@Jeff_Horner2

Never know when it could be ur last. Lay it on the line.

‏@ankeny_jaguars

BBB Final: Jaguars win 75-41!#jaguarpride

--Courtesy of Twitter.

*

Business as usual. The Des Moines Register did its usual bush league job of covering Valley. The paper devoted a whopping three paragraphs to last night's game in today's city edition. For a look at how much better other newspapers cover their high school teams, here's the story of last night's game that's published in today's Fort Dodge Messenger:

By JOHN McBRIDE sports@messengernews.net

WEST DES MOINES - A fourth-quarter comeback couldn't overcome a second-period scoring drought and the Fort Dodge boys' basketball team saw its season end with a 50-44 loss to West Des Moines Valley in a Class 4A substate semifinal here Friday night.

Fort Dodge went the final 5:26 of the second quarter without scoring a point and despite a 19-point final period, the Dodgers bowed out of tournament play with a 12-10 record, the first time since the 2010-11 season they closed the year with a winning mark.

Valley, now 14-8, plays Ankeny Centennial on Tuesday in a substate final at Ankeny High. The Jaguars advanced with a 75-41 thumping of Ames last night.

"The kids are resilient and we battled," said a dejected Dodger Coach Tom Daniel. "We just couldn't match their depth. They were running in a bunch of guys at once. When you get into the playoffs, the pressure mounts. They cranked up their defensive effort (in the 2nd period) and we got tired and started to make some mistakes.

"As a program, we can take a lot of pride in this season. The seniors should be proud. This program is in better shape after three years than it was when they got here."

Senior JC Hatcher led the Dodgers with 17 points, giving him 1,002 for his career. Fellow classmate Zach Martinson added 13, including nine in the fourth quarter.

"One silver lining is JC going over 1,000 points. That's a team thing, too. He scored a lot of points, but there was someone assisting him on a lot of shots and we had to run our offense to get him those chances to score. Everyone can take pride in that," said Daniel.

Sophomore Turner Scott led the Tigers with 16 points. He was the only Valley player in double figures. Tyus Mason and Quinton Curry added eight apiece.

Valley had beaten the Dodgers 78-65 earlier in the year, but Daniel made a defensive change and held the Tigers to just 17 field goals. However, the Tigers splashed home 12 free throws, including 10 in the fourth quarter alone.

"We wanted to come out in man and challenge them," explained Daniel. "We stayed in zone too long last game. Defensively, we held them. We just needed a play at the end and didn't come up with one. Sometimes that happens."

Despite physical play all game, the Dodgers shot just six free throws to 19 for the Tigers. Valley had a 12-4 edge in free throws made.

The Dodgers led 12-10 after the first quarter and pushed the lead to 17-13 on a three from Hatcher with 5:26 to play. That would be Fort Dodge's last points until Andrew Stover hit a shot with 7:05 left in the third quarter.

Valley closed the half with three-point shots by Mason and Scott and buckets by Scott and Tyler Williams. Williams also scored off a turnover 20 seconds into the second half and Valley led 25-17 at that point.

Stover, Blake Wilder and Hatcher each scored for the Dodgers to make it 25-23 with 4:40 in the quarter, Valley answered with a 6-0 run and it was 31-23 with 2:33 left.

After Wilder scored to make it 31-25, the Tigers reeled off six straight again and led 37-25 with one quarter to play.

Martinson then took over for the Dodgers, scoring their first seven points of the fourth period. Free throws by Stover and back-to-back buckets from Hatcher cut the lead down to 42-38.

Fort Dodge actually had the ball with a chance to get closer, but Krunal Thakor was called for a charge on a drive to the bucket with 2:09 to play.

"That was big," said Daniel. "It would have been nice to have a chance to get it down to two points at the line. We just couldn't get on the right side of the officials all night."

The Dodgers were then forced to foul and Valley made eight free throws down the stretch to match buckets from Hatcher, Martinson and Wilder.

Fort Dodge loses eight seniors off its roster. Marquan Clayton, Thakor, Cody Ellis, Hatcher, Stover, Wilder, Martinson and Cody Rivers all suited up for the final time.

"These kids elevated our program," said Daniel. "The challenge now is for the younger kids to see that it takes hard work. We can't have any excuses. We just have to find what works."

Valley 50, Fort Dodge 44

Valley Trei Mitchell 2 0-2 4, Turner Scott 5 4-4 16, Tyler Williams 3 1-2 7, Luke Umble 2 2-3 6, Quinton Curry 3 2-2 8, Tyus Mason 2 2-4 8, Anthony Holmes 0 0-0 0, Dominque Dafney 0 1-2 1, Carlo Marble 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 12-19 50.

Fort Dodge - Zach Martinson 6 0-0 13, JC Hatcher 7 0-0 17, Blake Wilder 3 0-2 6, Krunal Thakor 1 2-2 4, Andrew Stover 1 2-2 4, Kyle Beisch 0 0-0 0, Sam Kolacia 0 0-0 0, Alex Jackson 0 0-0 0. Totals 18 4-6 44.

Quarter scores: Fort Dodge led 12-10, Valley led 23-17, 37-25.

Three-point shots: Valley 4 (Scott 2, Mason 2). Fort Dodge 4 (Hatcher 3, Martinson 1).

Total fouls: Valley 11, Fort Dodge 16

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.