DES MOINES — In a true tale of two halves, the Marshalltown boys’ basketball team couldn’t keep up with a home team riding a hot streak.
Des Moines Roosevelt outscored the Bobcats 33-18 in the second half to overcome a small deficit for a 52-39 victory over Marshalltown in Friday’s Iowa Alliance Conference contest.
Marshalltown led 21-19 at the intermission and maintained the same advantage for nearly half of the third quarter. Neither team scored for nearly four minutes until Roosevelt (9-4) closed the period on an 18-6 surge.
Once the Roughriders shook loose, Marshalltown couldn’t reel them back in.
“The third quarter was the deal-breaker there for us,” said MHS head coach Michael Appel. “Too many turnovers where they were getting layups on the other end. We’ve gotta figure out ways to not turn it over like that and take care of the ball better and keep doing what we were doing and we would’ve been just fine.”
Kyle Smith scored 13 of his team-leading 15 points in the first half for Marshalltown, which suffered its fifth-straight loss. Smith also snared a team-high eight rebounds in the game.
Jacob Hayes stepped up with 10 points and Drake Gersema finished with seven. Jamison Niehouse added four points and three assists, and Adam Boone sank a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter.
Remi Taylor scored a game-high 18 points and Charlie King added 17 points to lead Roosevelt, which won its eighth in a row.
“You can’t fault their effort tonight,” Appel said of his squad. “They gave great effort, they played extremely hard. I thought our execution of our gameplan was great. The last two days of practice were great as far as preparing and understanding what we wanted to do and we did a great job of it.
“It’s just a matter of we have to figure out ways to take care of the ball, be stronger with the basketball, and those are things we need to work on in practice. As long as they’re giving their effort as hard as they can, that’s what you’re asking for.”
The Bobcats are back at home on Tuesday for an Alliance North showdown with Mason City.
Des Moines Roosevelt 52, Marshalltown 39
MARSHALLTOWN (3-9) — Jamison Niehouse 1 2-2 4, Drake Gersema 3 0-2 7, Kyle Smith 6 0-0 15, LaMar Johnson 0 0-0 0, Jacob Hayes 4 0-0 10, Adam Boone 1 0-0 3, Zane Moore 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 15 2-4 39.
DM ROOSEVELT (9-4) — Charlie King 6 2-4 17, Markese Harvey-Bell 0 0-0 0, Jack Kehoe 1 0-0 3, Iven Karla 2 0-2 5, Remi Taylor 8 1-4 18, Finley Newman 1 0-0 3, Kuaye Noah 1 1-1 3, Jonah Calderon 0 0-0 0, Frank Lee IV 1 0-0 3. TOTALS 20 4-11 52.
ROOSEVELT 8 11 18 15 — 52
MHS 9 12 6 12 — 39
3-Point Goals–MHS 7 (Smith 3, Hayes 2, Gersema, Boone), DMR 8 (King 3, Karla, Taylor, Kehoe, Newman, Lee). Team Fouls–MHS 16, DMR 12. Fouled Out–Johnson.