Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – City High didn’t play poorly in the opening 16 minutes on Monday while building a three-point halftime over Marion.

Little Hawk head coach Brennan Swayzer just didn’t feel like his squad played up to their full potential in the first two quarters.

“Coach, he got on us at halftime,” City High senior Christian Freeman said. “He definitely let us know we weren’t playing to our potential and we had to fix it.”

Whatever Swayzer said the Little Hawks heard him loud and clear.

City High broke open a three-point game by outscoring Marion 20-4 in the third quarter and cruised to a 62-38 win over the Wolves in a non-conference contest in Iowa City.

Junior AJ Wright had a game-high 19 points and Freeman had 10 of his 13 points during the third quarter as City High improved to 3-0 on the season.

“We weren’t playing to the best of our ability to start the game, we thought it was going to be easy game considering they had a loss on their record and we came out lazy,” Wright said. “Coach told us to turn it up and play the way we played the first two games and after we got that into our heads we had more intensity.”

City High led 12-10 after the opening quarter and had a 24-14 lead with five minutes remaining in the first half.

Marion closed the half on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 24-21 which resulted in the spirited halftime address from Swayzer.

“Coach talked to us about playing to the best of our ability,” Freeman said. “He told us he knows what we are capable of doing and we had to go out there and do it.”

City High quickly responded to the halftime message.

Freeman and Wright combined to score 11 consecutive points to start the third quarter as the Little Hawks opened the half on a 13-0 run.

“It was definitely more effort,” Wright said. “We had more intensity and we got after it on defense.”

City High held Marion (1-2) scoreless for more than six and a half minutes to start the second and didn’t allow the Wolves to make a field goal in the quarter.

Marion shot 29 percent from the floor for the game, including just 20 percent in the second half after missing all 11 third quarter shots from the floor.

“We had to go out there and turn up the intensity and make plays,” Freeman said. “I did what I could do to help us win and bring the energy up.”

The ramped up half-court man-to-man defense from City High forced 12 Marion turnovers in the second half and the Little Hawks turned several of those into easy transition layups.

“Usually the teams that we play against get a little rattled when we get up on them,” Wright said. “Once we figured that out tonight we just kept the pressure on and tried to pressure them as much as we can.”

Freeman had a double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds as City High held a 42-33 rebounding edge over Marion.

Parker Sutherland and AJ Wright each had six rebounds and Nolan McDonald and Jameer James each had seven points.

“Rebounding is important for us,” Freeman said. “We know if we don’t rebound we are going to give up points so we have to get in their and crash the boards.”

City High improved to 3-0 with the win, the first 3-0 start for the Little Hawks since 2009.

The Little Hawks are outscoring opponents by an average of 31.3 points per game while allowing just 30.3 points per game.

City High returns to action on Saturday traveling to Davenport West (0-1).

“We are just playing as a team,” Wright said. “We are playing our roles, everybody knows what they are supposed to do on the court and we are playing as a team.”

Marion                       10  11   4   13  –  38               

City High                   12  12  20  18  –  62               

Marion (38) – Caden Kinzenbaw 0-2 0-0 0, Austin Goodrich 2-8 0-0 5, Jordan Fischer 2-7 2-2 6, Jaryn Griffith 1-5 0-0 3, Josh Noll 0-2 1-2 1, Grayson Kirsch 0-4 0-0 0, Tyler Farber 2-3 1-1 5, Tait Rahe 0-2 0-0 0, Brooks Coates 1-3 0-0 3, Logan Harris 0-1 0-0 0, Kaleb Diers 0-1 2-2 2, Kylar Whitman 5-7 3-3 13, Totals 13-45 9-10 38.

City High (62) – Jameer James 3-8 0-0 7, Davion Luckett 1-2 2-3 4, AJ Wright 2-8 0-0 4, Jack Selemani 1-1 0-0 2, Kristian Freeman 4-8 4-5 13, Trey Wright 7-12 3-3 19, Amir Newell 1-6 2-2 4, Mack Kuyu 0-3 0-0 0, Nolan McDonald 3-9 0-1 7, Parker Sutherland 1-2 0-0 2, Charlie Firmstone 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 23-60 11-14 62.

3-point field goals – ICH 5-27 (James 1-6, Luckett 0-1, A. Wright 0-1, Freeman 1-3, T. Wright 2-6, Newell 0-4, McDonald 1-5, Firmstone 0-1), MAR 3-21 (Kinzenbaw 0-2, Goodrich 1-4, Fischer 0-3, Griffith 1-4, Noll 0-2, Kirsch 0-1, Farber 0-1, Rahe 0-2, Coates 1-2). Rebounds – ICH 42 (Freeman 13), MAR 33 (Whitman 6). Turnovers – ICH 13, MAR 22. Total fouls – ICH 15, MAR 13. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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