RON MALY HAS BEEN WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS ONE OF HIS WEBSITES.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Valley Dodges a Bullet

By RON MALY




By RON MALY

At halftime, I wouldn't have given you a nickel for Valley's chances of surviving its semifinal round game today in the class 5-A division of the state girls high school basketball tournament.

The second-ranked Tigers from West Des Moines were listless, couldn't shoot and couldn't rebound against Iowa City West.

It was the worst I'd ever seen a Joe Sigrist-coached team play in one half.

Maybe it was the worst Sigrist had seen, too.

Needless to say, he no doubt burned the game film if one of his teams had ever played a poorer half.

And today's game came just 48 hours after Valley was hitting on all cylinders while breaking the tournament scoring record by putting up 87 points in its tournament opener against crosstown rival Dowling.

You'd never know it was the same Valley team in the first 16 minutes of today's game.

The Tigers shot just 22.7 percent by making 5 field goals in 22 tries in the first half while falling behind Iowa City West, 21-14.

The only reason Valley wasn't even further behind was that West wasn't exactly shooting the lights out either, making only 5 of 20 attempts [25 percent] in the opening half.

But the Tigers got their act together in the third quarter and went on to win, 55-48, to advance to Saturday night's 8 o'clock championship game at Wells Fargo Arena against Cedar Falls, which pulled off the tournament's big shocker with a 48-44 victory over previously-unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Indianola in the other semifinal round game.

Both Valley and Cedar Falls have 23-2 records.

This is the 12th time Valley has been to the state tournament, but the Tigers haven't won a championship yet. They lost in the title game in 1965, 1995 and 2015.

Valley shot 55 percent in the last half. Drake signee Hannah Fuller led the Tigers with 13 points and freshman Alex Honold scored 12.

Shea Fuller tallied 9, sophomore Zoe Young, Jackie Feldt and Jaime Feldt each scored 7.

Valley won't be able to afford another poor first half performance against Cedar Falls, which saddled Indianola with its first loss in 25 games in the other semifinal.

I'm figuring Cedar Falls will give Valley everything it can handle.

My guess is that Sigrist will make sure his players are up to the challenge.