Warriors Head to Break with Solid Victory

Ottumwa -- The Indian Hills basketball team avoided a potential letdown in the final game before the players scatter for Christmas break, the Warriors putting together a solid all-around performance in a 128-72 blowout of NIACC at the Hellyer Center on Tuesday night.

IHCC scored the most points by a Warrior team since the 1999-2000 season in ending the first half of the schedule with a 14-1 record.  The Warriors made 14 3-point field goals and forced 36 turnovers by the Trojans.

Jameel McKay was one of three IHCC players to score over 20 points, pouring in 29 and adding nine rebounds.  Ronald Ross buried five 3s on his way to a 23-point night and Frank Williams had 15 of his 21 in the second half.

Ross also had seven steals and seven assists and Rawane Ndiaye had a team-high 11 rebounds as the Warriors stayed undefeated in 11 home games this season.

After Mohamed Mohamed's three-point play gave NIACC a 13-11 lead about five minutes into the game, Martin Dixon-Green, who had a season-high 12 points off the IHCC bench, answered with his own three-point play and the Warriors never trailed again. 

They quickly built the lead to double digits and put together a 33-10 run.  NIACC scored seven straight points, but the Warriors sprinted away after that to a 64-36 halftime lead.  Ironically, the margin was idential in the second half with Indian Hills outscoring the Trojans 64-36 over the final 20 minutes.

The 14 made 3s were one fewer than the season-high of 15 set last Friday against Clinton.  It was the ninth time in 15 games that IHCC has broken the century mark and lifted the season scoring average to 106.7.

Mohamed Mohamed led five double-figure scorers for NIACC with 19 points.

After playing its last five games at home, the next five for the Warriors are away from home, starting with three contests in five days in Arizona to begin the month of January.  The last of those five straight road games will be the conference opener at Northeast (Neb.) on Jan. 16.

INDIAN HILLS 128, NIACC 72

INDIAN HILLS

Jameel McKay 12 5-7 29, Dustin Hogue 8 0-0 16, Ronald Ross 9 0-0 23, Frank Williams 9 0-0 21, Gary Williams, Jr. 4 0-0 10, Martin Dixon-Green 4 2-3 12, Majok Deng 4 0-0 9, Gary Ross 1 0-0 3, Rawane Ndiaye 2 1-2 5  Team 53 8-12 128

NIACC

Chris Davis 4 5-6 15, Josiah Lee 3 2-4 11, Sam Skogen 5 0-2 10, Matthew Don 5 0-2 10, Mohamed Mohamed 9 1-3 19, Ben McDermott 1 2-2 4, Braxton Williams 0 1-2 1, Matt McKenzie 1 0-0 2  Team 28 11-16 72

Halftime score: Indian Hills 64, NIACC 36; Three-point field goals: IHCC 14 (R. Ross 5; F. Williams 3; F. Williams, Dixon-Green 2; Deng, G. Ross 1), NIACC 5 (Lee 3, Davis 2)