Central men shock Dubuque, earn spot in league title game
Central College
DUBUQUE — A stingy defensive effort by the Central College men’s basketball team propelled the Dutch to a 72-61 victory against the top-seeded University of Dubuque in the Iowa Conference semifinals, earning a spot in Saturday’s title game.
The Dutch (18-9) were able to reverse the result of last Saturday’s regular season finale, a 67-57 Dubuque victory. Central won the rebounding margin 44-33 and held the Spartans to 33.9% shooting. It was Central’s fourth game in Dubuque in nine days, and the Dutch won three of the four.
“It was really about our defense tonight,” coach Craig Douma said. “We played pretty good defense last Saturday but we stepped it up another level tonight. The effort and energy of our team was really good tonight.”
Winning back-to-back road games in league tournament play for the first time in school history, Central advances to face Wartburg Saturday in the title game at 7 p.m. in Waverly.
Leading by one at halftime, Central broke the game open with 44 points in the second half by shooting 57.1% from the field.
“Our message at halftime was to be patient offensively,” Douma said. “We needed to let the offense come to us. We got good looks and the guys were able to execute.”
A balanced scoring attack saw just three Dutch players reach double figures.
“We really spread it out tonight,” Douma said. “It was a little bit of everybody at different times. A lot of guys stepped up at different points in the game.
Leading the way was Pete Walker (junior, Red Oak) with 20 points.
“Pete had rough first half,” Douma said. “He came back in the second half and hit some big 3-pointers and played well.”
Central and Wartburg last met on February 13 in Pella. The Dutch put on a 3-point shooting clinic in that game to win 101-75. The Dutch have been dominant defensively since that game and will likely need more of the same on Saturday
“We’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Douma said. “Our game plan is not going to change a whole lot. We just need to play 40 solid minutes of basketball.”
