How Class 2A No. 4 Roland-Story fended off rival Nevada in an exciting HOIC showdown

With both teams coming off a challenging week facing ranked teams, Class 2A No. 4 Roland-Story and Nevada knew they were in for a dogfight in the second go-around between the two teams Tuesday at Story City.

Nevada came out strong and went toe-to-toe with a Norsemen team that won the first meeting by a decisive 23-point margin Dec. 6 in Story City. But a 12-2 run early in the fourth quarter helped Roland-Story pull away to take a two-game lead over the Cubs in the Heart of Iowa Conference race.

"It's just a huge win," Roland-Story coach Darrin Berggren said. "Obviously when you go through the conference the second time everything is going to get tougher. When you play a team twice a year for the last three or four years you just know each other so well. They did a good job of attacking us and they made a lot of shots. We're just glad we've got a lot of guys that know how to win and made winning plays down the stretch."

Roland-Story improved to 12-1 overall and 9-0 in the HOIC. Nevada fell to 9-4 and 7-2.

Here's what we learned from the thrilling contest between the Norse and Cubs.

Great balance keys the Norse victory

Roland-Story withstood Nevada's impressive performance by getting everyone involved.

The Norsemen ended up with five players scoring in double figures. They shot 50.7% from the field and finished with 21 assists on 34 field goals.

"It's a credit to our offensive passing," Roland-Story guard Boaz Clark said. "We had a lot of assists tonight. We found the open guy and hit the open shots."

More:How Luke Patton holds things together in the middle for Roland-Story boys basketball

Wilkinson was huge again for the Norsemen, finishing with 19 points and six rebounds.

"It was fun," Wilkinson said. "The atmosphere here — there are not many like it. Every year it feels like we struggle to put them away at our place. It was just fun to go out there and get a win."

Luke Patton was huge inside, going for 15 points, nine rebounds and five assists. He was thrilled to help his team take a major step toward winning a third-consecutive conference title.

"We knew coming in that if we seal this game we'll have two games up on everyone else in the conference," Patton said. "I don't see us dropping any games. I think we'll go undefeated in the conference."

Naylor had 15 points and five assists and Dillon Lettow stepped up with 14 points, five rebounds and two assists. Clark tacked on 12 points and five assists and he made four big free throws in the final 37 seconds to help close out the victory.

"We practice free throws a lot during practice," Clark said. "I like those pressure moments, so I just sunk them."

Ben Greenfield added 6 points and four rebounds and Kale Lande 4 points and six boards.

Roland-Story takes Nevada's best shot

Nevada came to play Tuesday.

After getting thumped in their first meeting with the Norsemen, the Cubs shot out to a 12-6 Tuesday. Roland-Story countered with a big run in the second quarter, but Nevada hung tough, only trailing 40-36 at the break. It looked as if Roland-Story was going to break the game open after its big run early in the fourth quarter, but Nevada refused to go away.

The Cubs cut the Norse lead from 13 down to five in the final seconds and that turned out to be their final margin of defeat.

"The key for us was sticking to the game plan," Nevada coach Tyler Struck said. "We obviously wanted to know where (Isaiah) Naylor and Jonovan (Wilkinson) were at all times and I thought we did a really good job with that. They had other guys make plays. But I give our guys a lot of credit because we kept answering the bell."

More:Nevada boys basketball is leaning on Jacob Khounsourath this season. He's embraced the challenge

Jacob Khounsourath had a huge game to help keep Nevada close. He scored a game-high 26 points.

"Jacob was much better than the first game," Struck said. "He got in the lane tonight. The first game he settled for 3s and didn't want to challenge the paint a lot, but tonight he did that. When he does that he's hard to defend."

Alec Higgins also came up big, finishing with 19 points on the night.

"Alec has been battling some injuries, but luckily tonight that injury didn't bother him much at all," Struck said. "It was huge to have him back making plays."

Tuesday's game capped a brutal stretch for Nevada. The Cubs also fell to Clear Lake and Newton teams ranked in the top 10 of 3A.

"We have four losses on the year and all four are to ranked teams by the Iowa High School Athletic Association poll," Struck said. "At times we played with all of them. I told our guys our main focus tonight was to make sure we were better and I thought we were. We played better than we did last Tuesday, last Thursday and Friday. That's what I wanted to see. This is about has proud and happy I've been after a loss in a long time."

Non-conference games up next for both schools

Both Nevada and Roland-Story finish out the week against non-conference teams.

Nevada is at Grinnell Thursday and the Cubs host Gilbert next Monday before returning to HOIC play at West Marshall next Tuesday. Roland-Story hosts South Hardin Thursday, takes on Carroll at Gilbert Saturday and hosts Dike-New Hartford Monday before returning to conference play at Perry next Tuesday.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Roland-Story boys outlast Nevada in exciting HOIC showdown, 85-80