After a brutally cold weekend, ADM and Gilbert’s game was postponed so the Tigers took a long weekend to recover and think about last week. A tough Carroll Tigers team came to Adel on Tuesday, December 20 and with a struggling ADM team, the Raccoon River Conference game was going to be a battle. Even though the Tigers have been struggling, senior Matthew Larson said the team isn’t panicking, they just have to put a couple of wins together and they’ll be fine. Larson also added that the team was in a little shock after how poorly the game went last Friday

The team was going to trust the process and continue to battle down the next stretch of games. During the game last night, you could tell that they were just going to keep going at it.

During the first half, ADM got to a hot start with Tajen Ross and Matthew Larson both scoring five. One thing that really brought a factor into the game and it showed early, was that the referees were not a fan of any contact. ADM has struggled all throughout the early season playing down low. Carroll didn’t have much of a big man but ADM still played the paint the best they have all season, stealing down low and Cole Knoll getting almost every rebound he possibly could. ADM jumped out early in the game having a comfortable 8 point lead for most of the first half. Although Carroll did march down and cut the lead to four, with ADM up 33-29 at the half.

The second half was all ADM. They looked like a whole new team than earlier in the season. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few struggles like more turnovers, missed free throws down the stretch and a lot of frustration where the chemistry just didn’t look like it was there. ADM was driving to the basket, getting a lot of rebounds, getting a lot of steals, and making a lot of shots down the stretch. The thing that helped ADM the most was their defense, holding Carroll’s Kolby Molinsky to only 13 where he usually averages 19.

Ross Larson and Conrad combined for 58 points and every one of those points was earned. Some early season doubts didn’t keep this ADM team from losing hope. They will continue to battle all season and this huge 74-60 win over a conference foe keeps ADM hopes still high.

Matthew Larson, who had a team-high 22 points, described what this means for the team, sounding confident about where the team stands in the conference. “This win shows that we can compete with good teams when we play the game at our pace and how we wanna play it, we can be really good.”

Over break, Larson talked about how they are going to have to practice a lot and work on the things they struggle with.

ADM is going to have to play really good after break. They have #3 ranked Pella when they come back and the Dutch are no joke.