Chickasaws' effort solid again but season ends with district loss to NFV
New Hampton's Nick Brincks gets behind the North Fayette Valley defense and scores on a layup in Monday's Class 2A district game.
By Bob Fenske
As Nick Brincks stood in the locker room at North Fayette Valley Monday night, the New Hampton senior was asked a question.
Would he do it all over again, even if it meant going 2-19.
"Absolutely," he said without hesitation after Brincks and his teammates saw their season end with a 74-57 loss to North Fayette Valley. "I mean, obviously I wish we would have won more games, but we learned a lot about ourselves this year. I'm proud of my team. We cared for each other. We stuck together."
And if there's one thing one can say about this 2023-24 New Hampton team, it is this: It gave maximum effort.
The Chickasaws did it again on Monday in their Class 2A district opener, but the TigerHawks, who improved to 19-3 and advanced to a semifinal game against Waukon Thursday, proved to be too tall and too talented for New Hampton to overcome.
New Hampton certainly had its moments.
Two Brincks' 3-pointers and another by Adam Ewert kept the Chickasaws close early, but North Fayette Valley closed the first quarter with a 5-0 run to take a 24-14 lead.
But NFV scored six straight points in a 60-second span early in the second frame to take a 32-18 lead, and despite the effort put forth by a Chickasaws' squad playing without the injured Cael Laures, New Hampton's top scorer, NFV never led by less than 10 the rest of the way.
"We had some chances, but we needed to be better on defense," Brincks said. "That was the frustrating part. We gave them too many open shots, too many easy ones, but we gave it everything we had."
Early in the second half, New Hampton fell behind by 25, but New Hampton, with Brincks scoring eight points, closed the quarter with a 15-7 run to cut the deficit to 17, 58-41, heading into the fourth quarter.
"I thought maybe we had one big run in us," New Hampton coach Ryan Rausch said, "but give North Fayette credit, they're a good team. They just wouldn't give in. It wasn't that we didn't play hard, and that's been the hallmark of our team this year — we didn't get the results we wanted but we always, almost always, played hard."
Brincks hit 4-of-5 3-point shots to finish with 16 points and added six rebounds. Ewert, who had 10 points in the opening half, finished with 14 while senior Ben Gilbert closed out his career with nine.
The loss ended the careers of four seniors — Gilbert, Carter Newbrough, Brincks and Laures — and their coach had nothing but praise for them.
"They're good kids, really good kids," Rausch said. "They genuinely cared not just for each other but for the young guys in the program. I'd do anything to see them go out with more than two wins this year, but the attitude they had, the effort they gave, I have absolutely zero complaints about that."
NORTH FAYETTE VALLEY 74, NEW HAMPTON 57
NH 14 12 15 16 - 57
NFV 24 20 14 16 - 74
Ben Gilbert 4-11 0-0 9, Caden Rochford 2-6 2-2 7, Adam Ewert 5-13 3-5 14, Nick Brincks 6-11 0-0 16, Reid Rausch 2-5 0-0 4, Jake Schwickerath 1-2 0-0 2, Carter Newbrough 1-4 0-0 3, Ryan Willadsen 1-3 0-0 2, Dylen Schmitt 0-0 0-0 0, Jacob McDonald 0-0 0-0 0, Braxton Bundy 0-1 0-0 0, Payton Erlandson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-55 5-7 57.
3-point field goals - Brincks 4-5, Ewert 1-3, Rochford 1-4, Newbrough 1-4, Gilbert 1-6, Rausch 0-3.
Rebounds - Brincks 6, Ewert 3, Willadsen 3, Gilbert 3, Rochford 2, Schwickerath 2, Rausch 1, Erlandson 1.
Assists - Gilbert 2, Ewert 2, Newbrough 1, Willadsen 1.
Steals - Rausch 2, Ewert 2, Gilbert 2, Brincks 1, Schwickerath 1.
Blocks - Ewert 1.
