Platte Valley repeats as Class 1 girls basketball champion
By Cody Thorn I Photos by Cheap Seats Photography
There are plenty of names associated with the Class 1 girls champions.But that last word is the one that matters most, as South Nodaway won the state title, 63-50, over Delta on Saturday night at JQH Arena.
The official MSHSAA website lists South Nodaway as the 2022 champions. The same group won the championship last year but the record book listed it as Jefferson with South Nodaway.
The year before, when the same program coached by Tyler Pederson took second, the history books said it is South Nodaway with Jefferson.
To make it maybe even a little bit more confusing is the red, white and blue jersey worn on Saturday said Platte Valley.
The program is the byproduct of a co-op between Jefferson and South Nodaway and this combined team goes by Platte Valley but doesn’t have a mascot, but the logo has both a Longhorn (South Nodaway) and Eagle (Jefferson).
“It means everything especially coming from Jefferson, where this has been a thing before where it's like they've gone back-to-back and to hear that tradition and be like, ‘Man, I really want to do that,’” said Platte Valley Stephanie Turpin, one of four seniors. “So the fact that we have done that it's really special for us.
Added senior Sam Terry, “Let's also start off Platte Valley that way that is also special to us and to incorporate a whole another school and also have that'd be their tradition.”
The No. 1-ranked team took command early, up 10 points after the first quarter, and then had 23-13 lead at the break.
Platte Valley (29-1) extended the lead to 14 points on a layup by Sarah Langford with 5 minutes, 55 seconds to go in the third quarter.
Down 32-18, Delta closed out the quarter on a 19-5 run to tie the game up at 37-37 going into the fourth quarter.
Delta sophomore Presley Holweg had nine of her 13 points during the surge, while sophomore Addison Nichols and freshman Jade Berry had five points each.
“I mean, honestly, that's just how we've always go,” Delta senior Kendall Holweg said. “I mean, if you look back at any of our games, we always have a run. And I mean, we should have done that from the beginning. But any game that we've played, we always have a run where we're hitting shots and we're getting steals and we're flying around. And we did that in the third quarter. It's just we should have kept it going going into fourth quarter.”
Said Pederson of the Ladycats’ barrage, “Delta is probably never ever really out of any game because the way they play, they play fast. They bomb 3s and are very capable of scoring a lot of points in a hurry. A 10-point lead can be erased pretty quick. And you know, that's what we found out in the third, but I’m just very proud of our girls for responding because we very easily could have folded when they came storming back and took a lead. But you know, we we talked about we had a tie game going in the fourth quarter and we talked about this big eight minutes and we just needed you know, everything come down to that eight minutes and we came out of that that timeout and responded.”
The No. 4-ranked Ladycats, which had won 19 in a row before the setback, continued the run on a layup by Lacey Blattel and a pair of free throws from Berry, making it 41-37 with 7:18 to play.
Three straight 3-pointers by Platte Valley followed and the mascot-less squad took a lead it never gave back. Sophomore Brylie Angle hit one and then senior Jaclyn Pappert hit the go-ahead basket about a minute later. Angle’s second trey of the quarter, with 5:48 left, made it 46-41. It was part of a 14-2 run that locked up the title as the Ladycats never got closer than five.
“I think the biggest thing is No. 33 (Angle) hit two 3s,” Delta coach Dave Heeb said. “You just got to give her credit. If she misses one of those when we're up two or four, maybe it's a different story, but she just literally didn't miss.”
Then, Pappert didn’t miss after that, going 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in the final minute.
Pappert finished with a game-high 21 point in her final game, one of three in double figures. Angle hit five 3-pointers and had 18 points, while Maggie Collins had 13 points.
Delta also had three in double figures. Berry had 15, followed by Presley Holweg with 13 and Nichols with 11.
Third-place game: Leeton 58, Walnut Grove 39
The No. 2-ranked Bulldogs bounced from a semifinal setback by starting fast in the third-place game on Saturday morning at JQH Arena.
Leeton started the first quarter on a 9-2 run and used that momentum to take a 28-14 lead into the break.
A 21-point third quarter for the Bulldogs (25-3) paved the way for a 20-plus point lead for most of the second half. Junior Jaedyn Johnson had eight of her 15 points in the third for the Bulldogs.
She shared the team lead in points with Regan Shaffer, who had a team-high six steals. Junior Bailey Fleming joined the duo in double figures by scoring 12.
Walnut Grove, ranked No. 10-ranked, received 12 points from Jacie Gavisk, who added a game-high 12 rebounds.
Both teams nearly hit half of its shots in the second half, with Walnut Grove sinking 9 of 18 for 50 percent, while Leeton hit 12 of 25 for 48 percent.
