Area seniors compete in NICL All-Star Games

REINBECK – After winning a second state championship together earlier this month, Dike-New Hartford’s Taylor Kvale enjoyed matching up with her teammate Sophia Hoffmann as they donned Wolverine jerseys for the final time on the hardwood.

The D-NH duo were part of several area seniors that competed in the NICL Senior All-Star Games at Gladbrook-Reinbeck High School on Friday.

Kvale and Hoffmann teamed up together in the first half of the girls game, then split up in the second half to mix up the rosters a bit.

“It was like a heightened practice and we’re both so goofy, it doesn’t matter who wins, we’ll talk crap about it still,” said Kvale, an Upper Iowa softball commit.

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Hoffmann won the three-point contest at halftime with six made shots, which was as many as she had made in her four years of playing high school ball with the Wolverines.

“I think I just have luck in this gym,” said Hoffmann, a South Dakota State soccer commit. “I was surprised I made even one, thought maybe I’d make two, realistically.”

Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s Katie Clark and Mahayla Olson represented the Rebels on the girls roster as well.

“It was great to be teammates with these girls instead of having to go against them,” Clark said. “It’s really cool to get that perspective that it’s the same game no matter what.”

In the boys game that followed, D-NH’s Brewer Eiklenborg and Isaac Derifield were among the competitors.

Derifield performed well in the 3-point contest at halftime, and Eiklenborg reached the finals of the Dunk Contest won by Gunner Meyer of Wapsie Valley.

“I missed that last one trying to cock it back a little bit,” Eiklenborg said of his dunk. “But it was a fun way to go out and have this last game to enjoy. … The coaches do a good job of getting our intensity up and making it enjoyable.”

AGWSR’s David Koop, Jeffrey Pfaltzgraff and Tanner Lindaman all competed on Friday as well, with head coach Ryley Schipper helping Columbus’ Dru Robinson go up against Denver’s Kyle Matthias and Grundy Center’s Troy Ersland in a battle of coaches that were arguably having as much fun as the boys were.

“That was a lot of fun,” Koop said after the game. “Like Schipper said, it’s playing for the name on the jersey one last time. … Schipper said, ‘We’re here to play and have fun. … But we’re not going to lose, either.’”

Koop admitted he was a little nervous as the trigger man on a couple of alley-oop attempts that he tried to set up with Pfaltzgraff and Lindaman in the dunk contest.

“I feel bad for Tanner and Jeffrey,” Koop said half-jokingly. “But it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I took part in it tonight.”