Head coach Dylan Longley has his squad focusing on the now, and the results so far have been positive. The Tigers took another step in the same direction on Tuesday night with a 63-44 victory over the Buena Vista University’s junior varsity team inside the Student Activity Center.

It marked three consecutive wins for the MCC women — the program’s first such streak since January of 2015.

“Especially at the two-year level, it’s a whole new team and it’s a different mindset,” said Longley, in his second year at MCC. “There’s a lot of things we do differently than last year. Our overall effort is better than last year and our kids are very coachable. We’re not very deep so it is what it is, but the kids on this team are all two feet moving in the same direction so that’s really good.”

To this point, the Tigers (4-1) have hanged their hats on defense. MCC is allowing just 50 points per game, good for fourth among Iowa Community College Athletic Conference teams, and it has helped to offset being a lower scoring team itself.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - MCC sophomore Destiny Sao-Martinez (20) dribbles ahead of Buena Vista’s Olivia Mattson on her way to a fast-break layup during Tuesday’s 63-44 Tiger victory.

“Defense is definitely our top priority,” Longley said. “We’re emphasizing defense every single day and while the first five games are definitely not the toughest games we’re going to play this year, right now we’re near the top of the conference defensively.

“It’s something we preach every day. Defense travels, our offense isn’t always going to be on, and it hasn’t been sometimes this year. Even when we played North Platte and lost by 20, we only let up 61 points, so if you can keep teams in the 60s you’re going to win a lot of basketball games.”

On Tuesday night, the Tigers got a big boost from 5-foot-1 sophomore guard Jalen Shaw, who tallied a career-high 11 points thanks to three 3-pointers. Shaw made a pair of 3-pointers during MCC’s 14-5 run over the final six minutes of the second quarter to help the team take a nine-point lead into the intermission.

She added her third triple — more than her career total (2) going into the game — to beat the buzzer and finish off an 8-0 MCC surge over the final 2:32 of the third quarter.

Marshalltown trailed the Beavers (0-1) by as many as nine points in the first quarter, 11-2, before gradually coming back. The Tigers were down 12-11 after the opening period and took their first lead on a floater in the lane by 5-5 freshman guard Kimari Hall at the seven-minute mark of the second.

It was a part of MCC’s 16-3 run over a seven-minute span that put them on top 18-14. The Tigers never trailed again.

“This was Buena Vista’s first game of the year so we didn’t know what they were going to do, but luckily we’ve run our zone offense a lot in practice and we have seen a little bit of zone this year,” Longley said of the Beavers’ 1-2-2 half-court zone defense. “Their zone did what zones should do — slow you down and make you uncomfortable. Fortunate for us we’ve been playing at a slower tempo all year so I don’t think it bothered us too much. It gets you out of a rhythm no matter who you’re playing so I thought we handled it well.”

Longley said having Hall on the floor to run the offense went a long way toward that.

“Especially against a zone like this, when you play against a zone for 40 minutes, you need somebody that can handle the ball and attack the middle of the defense,” he said. “We’ve got some younger post players so as they develop, we’ll be able to do some other things off that, but yeah right now Kimari was big for us.”

Hall finished with 12 points, five assists and four steals despite missing more than five minutes in the second half due to injury. MCC made up for her absense by closing the third quarter on an 8-0 run, sparked by 3-pointers from Destiny Sao-Martinez and Hall’s buzzer-beater.

Mia Sao-Martinez led the Tigers with 14 points, Destiny finished with 11 points to go with six steals, Shenell Stewart had 13 points and six steals, and Abigail Gradwell chipped in a bucket. Kenijae Cherry didn’t score but led MCC with five rebounds.

A driving factor for the Tigers’ triumph was the way they finished each period. MCC outscored Buena Vista 35-12 over the final four minutes of all four quarters combined, sparked by a full-court man-to-man defense that caused 27 turnovers for the Beavers.

“Obviously our pressing defense and creating turnovers in the press helped a lot,” Longley said. “That was probably what got the engine going for us.

“Sometimes you have to be careful because you get into foul trouble … but we have athletes. We have kids that can finish.”

Nevaeh Lyman led BVU with 10 points and Olivia Mattson added nine.

Marshalltown returns to action this weekend with the Emerson Classic. The Tigers face Elgin CC on Friday at 5 p.m., and on Saturday they face NJCAA Division II No. 13-ranked North Central Missouri at 5 p.m.

“That’s a game if we can stick in there and battle and do what we do best, it’s going to be a good barometer of what we can do this year,” Longley said of Saturday’s tilt with NCMC. “North Central Missouri is very good and very deep. Plus that will be our fifth game in eight days, so we’ll see what we can do.”

MCC 63, Buena Vista JV 44

BUENA VISTA JV (0-1) — Grace Neuberger 4, Kyra Bekaert 2, Ruthie Hulton 0, Olivia Mattson 9, Annie Johnson 6, Emily Nothwehr 6, Nevaeh Lyman 10, Shea Peterson 0, Lea Pederson 4, Alexis Flaharty 3.

MCC (4-1) — Mia Sao-Martinez 14, Jalen Shaw 11, Kimari Hall 12, Destiny Sao-Martinez 11, Kenijae Cherry 0, Abigail Gradwell 2, Nunu Johnson 0, Shenell Stewart 13, Gio Damiao 0.

BUENA VISTA 14 9 13 12 — 44

MCC 13 19 15 16 — 63

3-Point Goals–BVU 2 (Lyman 2), MCC 6 (Shaw 3, M. Sao-Martinez, Hall, D. Sao-Martinez). Total Fouls–BVU 14, MCC 12.

EMERSON CLASSIC

At Marshalltown Community College

Friday, Nov. 15

Women’s Basketball

Iowa Lakes vs. North Central Missouri, 1 p.m.

Elgin at MCC, 5 p.m.

Men’s Basketball

Iowa Lakes vs. John Wood, 3 p.m.

St. John’s Academy-DME at MCC, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 16

Women’s Basketball

Iowa Lakes vs. Elgin, 1 p.m.

North Central Missouri at MCC, 5 p.m.

Men’s Basketball

Iowa Lakes vs. St. John’s Academy-DME, 3 p.m.

John Wood at MCC, 7 p.m.