Photo Courtesy of Columbus Girls Basketball Social Media

It was a Southeast Iowa Superconference split Thursday night at Lorber Gym in New London for the Columbus Wildcat girls and boys basketball teams. The Wildcat girls were a runaway 59-6 winner. The Tigers scored the games first basket, the ‘Cats would account for the next 40 points, leading 16-2 after one and 33-2 at half, putting New London through a 20 minute scoring drought in total. The Wildcats won the second half 27-4. Columbus outrebounded New London by 24 and won turnovers 32-13. Nine total Wildcats scored, led by 11 points each, and three threes each, for Iris Garza and Isabel Rendon. Columbus senior Kinlee Brown joined the KCII Postgame show to talk about the win. “Our start was just incredible. The girls had so much energy. I love to show our Wildcat pride. We come out and have the mindset that we’re going to go get every possession and get stops on defense. Offensively, it’s about knocking down shots.”

Megan Lee scored four to lead New London. The Wildcats are now 7-9 on the year as the Tigers stay winless.

The boys contest was tight all the way but New London won the nightcap 51-45. The Tigers used a 14-1 first quarter run to build a lead they would hold the rest of the night, on top 14-10 after one and 31-23 at half. A 7-0 Wildcat run in the third and an 8-0 run in the fourth brought Columbus within 44-42 in crunch time, but the Tigers scored seven of the final 10 points to secure the win. New London won the glass by six and each team committed 18 turnovers. Israel Lemley scored 21 to lead the Tigers, including six threes, three in the fourth quarter. The ‘Cats got 22 from Ellis Hills-Carrier. The Wildcats are now 7-8 with the loss while New London advances to 3-15.