Spearman's Free Throw Clinches Confererence Crown

Ottumwa -- A free throw by Brandon Spearman with 5.9 seconds to play proved to be the difference as the Indian Hills Warriors completed an undefeated conference season with a 75-74 win against Iowa Western on Saturday night.

Spearman's game-winning foul shot came after a steal by Roderick Bobbitt, who then fed Spearman for a driving layup attempt.

Bobbitt's steal followed a putback basket by Gary Ricks, Jr. with just under ten seconds remaining that tied the score at 74.

The win was the fourth straight in the conference for IHCC and means they will get a bye in the first round of the postseason and will have home court advantage in the best-of-three series to determine the Region 11 postseason champ. That series will begin on March 5.

Iowa Western had gone ahead 74-72 with under a minute to play when first Kelvin Dixon and then Alonzo Traylor hit a pair of free throws.

Those four foul shots wiped out an Indian Hills lead of 72-70 which came on a Dustin Hogue field goal on a pass from Ricks with a little over a minute to play.

The Reivers battled back from a 70-60 deficit with 10 straight points, the last six coming on Xavier Munford's fourth 3-pointer, and third of the second half, and a three-point play by Traylor.

Traylor led all scorers with 22 points and Munford added 16.

Indian Hills used a 17-4 run over about a six-minute span and apparently took control of the game at that point. They still owned a double-digit lead after a Ronnie Stevens' tip-in built the ten-point advantage at 70-60 with 5 1/2 minutes to play.

But the Warriors then went over four minutes without a point while Iowa Western was rallying for the 70-all deadlock.

Spearman led IHCC with 17 points. It was his hot shooting early that allowed Indian Hills to grab an 11-3 lead in the opening minutes.

The Reivers then scored ten unanswered points to take their first lead of the night and ended the first half with eight consecutive points to go ahead 38-30 at the half.

The Warriors helped to turn things around with some tenacious defense in the second half. And their final steal of the night came on the Reivers' final possession.

After Spearman's free throw made it a one-point game, Iowa Western had the ball knocked loose in their backcourt as they tried to advance the ball for a potential game-winning shot. Jameel McKay corralled the loose ball and the Warriors celebrated their 25th win of the season.

Indian Hills will end the regular-season schedule with a pair of games this week. They will host State Fair CC on Wednesday in the last home game before the postseason and then travel to Chicago to take on Kennedy-King on Saturday.

INDIAN HILLS 75, IOWA WESTERN 74

INDIAN HILLS Brandon Spearman 7 1-4 17, Gary Ricks, Jr. 4 4-4 15, DeAndray Buckley 0 0-2 0, Michael Haynes 2 1-2 5, D.J. Bennett 4 2-3 10, Kieran Woods 0 0-0 0, Jameel McKay 1 3-4 5, Roderick Bobbitt 2 0-1 5, Dustin Hogue 3 1-3 7, Ronnie Stevens 2 3-5 7, Trinson White 1 2-3 4, Frank Williams 0 0-0 0, Rawane Ndiaye 0 0-0 0, Gary Ross 0 0-0 0 Team 26 17-31 75

IOWA WESTERN Xavier Munford 5 2-2 16, Alonzo Traylor 9 4-5 22, Devin Brooks 3 3-4 9, Kelvin Dixon 2 4-5 8, Antonio Levy 3 0-0 7, Bernard Brame 0 0-0 0, Wil Martinez 3 0-0 9, Tavian Pomlee 1 0-0 3, Brock Lutes 0 0-0 0, Jared Johnson 0 0-0 0 Team 26 13-16 74

Halftime score: Iowa Western 38, Indian Hills 30; Three-point field goals: IHCC 6 (Ricks 3, Spearman 2, Bobbitt 1), IWCC 9 (Munford 4, Martinez 3, Levy, Pomlee 1)