Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – After scuffling early it appeared Regina had found enough offensive traction to pull out a win in its season opener.

Tipton had other ideas.

The Tigers outscored Regina 10-3 over the final 72 seconds to overcome a four-point deficit in a 49-46 win over the Regals in a River Valley Conference South Division matchup on Tuesday in Iowa City.

Regina committed 15 turnovers and shot 30 percent through three quarters but still had a four-point lead when Ashton Cook scored on a layup with 90 seconds left.

It was all Tipton the rest of the way.

Caleb Shumaker and Kayden Rezac each hit a pair of free throws to tie the game at 43 and Bob Ryan scored the go-ahead basket on a steal and layup with 50 seconds left as Tipton snapped an eight-game losing skid to Regina.

“You put it in perspective as lousy as our offense was we still should have won the game,” first-year Regina coach Gary Belger said. “I’m not even upset about all the misses we had, that’s just part of the game, what I’m upset about is the fact that the ball means so little to some of these guys and they were afraid. They played scared. But we only have two guys that have every played in a varsity game and that makes a difference.”

Cook had 15 of his game-high 22 points in the fourth quarter as Regina erased a 31-27 deficit.

The 6-foot-5 senior scored the first 10 points of the quarter for Regina and gave Regina a 43-39 lead with a layup with 1:30 left.

It was Tipton that controlled things the rest of the way.

“We had way too many turnovers,” Cook said. “We have a pretty young team and we haven’t played that much together but we have to clean that up as we keep playing together.”

Cook made 1-of-2 free throws with 37 seconds left to cut the Tipton lead to 45-33 but Rezac scored on a fast break layup four seconds later and the Tigers made two free throws in the final 11 seconds to put the game away.

“Take nothing away from Tipton, they deserved to win the game,” Belger said. “That’s the first thing they deserved to win the game but every time a shot would go up you would see three black jersey on inside position and you’d see three white jerseys standing there and not even trying to get in there and compete and get inside position.”

Regina finished with a 33-28 rebounding edge but the Tigers had seven offensive rebounds.

The Regals struggled at times against the pressure defense finishing with 18 turnovers including three in the final three minutes that all turned into points.

“We got what we deserved,” Belger sad. “A couple of those turnovers where we handed them the ball and they went in for a layup I think we would have had control of the game if we would have broken the press.”

Tipton lead 9-4 after one quarter and 19-18 at the half before Coltrae Kerschen got going after halftime.

Kerschen scored all nine third quarter points for Regina on three 3-pointers giving the Regals a 27-25 lead with his third triple of the quarter with 3:37 left.

The junior guard finished with 17 points as Kerschen and Cook combined for 39 of the Regals’ 46 points.

“We are still getting in shape and I think as we keep playing together we are going to fix some of the mistakes we made,” Cook said. “We are going to play better each game.”

Ryan had a team-high 11 points for Tipton while Rezac had nine and Davis Webb had eight.

Regina            4  14   9   19  –  46

Tipton            9  10  11  19  –  49

Regina (46) – Carson Jensen 1-1 0-1 3, Jack Brandt 1-2 0-0 3, Nolan McDonald 0-1 0-0 0, Jack Tierney 0-4 1-2 1, Eddie Petersen 0-1 0-0 0, Coltrae Kerschen 6-12 0-0 17, Ashton Cook 7-15 8-15 22, Cameron Lehman 0-1 0-0 0, Andrew Wiese 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 15-39 9-18 46.

Tipton (49) – Cole Syring 2-6 0-0 6, Caleb Shumaker 1-3 4-7 6, Bob Ryan 4-10 3-4 11, Cody Bohlmann 1-2 0-2 2, Kayden Rezac 2-9 4-4 9, Davis Webb 3-7 1-6 8, Ty Nichols 1-1 0-0 3, Caden Schmitt 0-3 4-6 4, Totals 14-41 16-29 49.

3-point field goals – ICR 7-23 (Jensen 1-1, Brandt 1-2, McDonald 0-1, Tierney 0-3, Petersen 0-1, Kerschen 5-10, Cook 0-4, Lehman 0-1), TIP 5-19 (Schmitt 0-2, Nichols 1-1, Webb 1-2, Rezac 1-6, Bohlmann 0-1, Ryan 0-3, Syring 2-4). Rebounds – ICR 33 (Wiese 5), TIP 28 (Shumaker 9). Turnovers – ICR 18, TIP 9. Total fouls – ICR 21, TIP 18. Fouled out – TIP (Syring, Rezac). Technical fouls – None.

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