After a tough week losing to Champlin Park, losing to Shakopee, and losing Amir Coffey for the season, things quickly got rough again for the Hopkins Royals when David DiLeo hit two quick treys and the rapid Iowa City West transition game gave the visitors an early 13-4 lead.  Coach Ken Novak Jr stepped off the bench to get a timeout and calm the troops.

The Novak timeout worked, for a bit.  Xavier Johnson went on a mini-explosion hitting three long jumpers (two of them from behind the arc) followed by a pair of treys from Simon Wright.  The run brought Hopkins within a score igniting their entertaining student section to chant “Who Hates Iowa? We Hate Iowa!” and other entertaining stuff. 

The gap in the score did not stay close for long.  DiLeo broke free in transition to hit another pair of treys and guard Alex Henderson came off the bench to attack the rim for several free throws plus he hit a three.  Add in that Connor McCaffery’s basket attack resulted in four scores and Iowa City West went into the break up a comfortable 46-27.

You have to give the Hopkins kids credit.  They fought, defended, and battled to the end.  Coach Novak’s crew never stopped working and they brought the lead back down to 14 points (77-63) late in the game.  But this was never really “a game” again.  Iowa City West was always in control and they won 81-66. 

Iowa City West (IA) 81, Hopkins 66

Score by half:
Iowa City West 46-35—81
Hopkins 27-39—66

Iowa City West: DiLeo 25, Louhas 15, McCaffery 14, Henderson 11, Lane 10, Parks 6.

Hopkins: Johnson 17, Wright 15, Warren 10, Hutson 5, Shahid 4, Warshaw 4, Davis 3.

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