The Washington Demons defended their home floor and completed the sweep of Albia in a boy-girl doubleheader, the girls holding off Albia 41-33, and the boys running away to a 49-29 win.
The girls, fresh off a win over Muscatine, were looking for a second straight win and first win of the season at home. The Demons had a rough night from the field, with a barrage of missed 3-pointers, and several missed chances to pick up second chance points. Several turnovers also allowed the Lady Dees to keep it close, despite having their own issues offensively. Senior Leighton Messinger was the driving force early for Washington, she managed to make three 3-pointers through the struggles to give the Demons a 13-12 lead after the first.
While the offensive issues continued early in the second, the Demon defensive effort was consistently great. Washington forced several turnovers off of jumped passes and picked pockets, which led to multiple chances to shoot their way out of the slump. That didn’t happen right away, but a solid effort from freshman Ashlynn Long and Messinger’s fourth 3 of the game led to Washington outscoring Albia 10-5 in the second quarter and taking a 23-17 halftime lead.
The second half saw Washington make a constant effort to keep Albia at arm’s length. The Demons controlled the glass, and while Albia’s quick guards were able to beat Washington off the ball a couple times, the team quickly adjusted to take away the driving lanes. An even third quarter kept the lead at 6 into the fourth, but Washington started to pull away in the final quarter. Washington even led by double digits a couple times in the final frame, but a last gasp Albia push put it back into single digits, again a 41-33 win for the Demons.
Messinger’s first half efforts made her the leading scorer for the evening at 13 points. Adalyn Long, held scoreless in the first half, put up 10 in the second to reach double-digits. Albia’s Aliyah Hood was the leader for the Lady Dees, dropping 12 points. Lillian DeMoss picked up 10.
After the game, head coach Colin Mulford gave some quick thoughts on his team’s performance on KCII. “I feel like the first two games our offensive rebounding has given us a lot better chance. If we can do that consistently, we’re going to hopefully be able to win a lot of games. Turnovers were that issue in that first half. But then I felt like its the second game of the year, but our first one at home, so I feel like we have those jitters, of just being indecisive in that first half, but that really got fixed in the second.”
The Washington girls are now 2-0 on the season after starting 0-2 a year ago.
After the girls, the Washington Demon boys made their season debut, against an Albia team returning virtually no one from last year’s 19-4 team. Leading scorer Gage Chance, who averaged 19.1 points per game as a sophomore, was out with injury, meaning the Blue Demons were looking to slow things down and keep things in the half court. That suited Washington just fine. The Demons were content to play the half court game, but still played aggressive defense to force the still-bigger-and-taller Albia into mistakes. Brave play from the Washington guards got the Demons to the foul line, and although free throw shooting was a struggle for the team, a couple key Albia players had to make an early exit with foul trouble.
The Demons led 16-7 after the first quarter, and flirted with a double digit lead several times in the second before settling on a 9-point lead, 23-14, at the break. In the second half, the Demons took that double-digit lead back and kept it there for good, outscoring Albia 12-5 in the third quarter before earning garbage time with an early fourth quarter run. The benches came out to complete what proved to be a 20-point, 49-29 victory for Washington.
Washington is 1-0 on the season, and get revenge for a 33-point loss to Albia a year ago. Senior Rajan Roth led the scoring effort, he had 16, while senior Drew Conrad and junior Nic Stone each had 12.
During the post-game show, head coach Collin Stark made his way up to talk with KCII about how his boys were able to earn the big win. “You know, I was proud of our half court defense, and just the physicality, and being able to for the most part limit them to one shot. And that’ll be something I look at, to see what was the offensive rebounding numbers and everything. But on a day that the baskets weren’t going in, you’ve got to find ways to win. And I thought, that’s kind of what we did today.”
Both the boys and girls are back in action this Friday, taking on Keokuk in both teams’ first conference matchup in 2025. Both games will be broadcast on FM106.1, the KCII1 app, and kciiradio.com. Pregame is at 5:30, with the girls tip at 6. The boys will follow.