It was worth the wait for IKM. After losing in the championship game in 2005 the top-ranked Hawks left no doubt who was going to win last night’s 1A title game at the girls state basketball tournament. IKM outscored third rated Treynor 18-4 in the opening quarter and raced away to a 54-33 victory. “After we did get beat last year, the girls really put in a lot of time and worked very hard to get back into this position…and take it a step further,” says IKM coach Gene Rasmussen. The Hawks had a huge rebounding advantage as they out boarded Treynor 44-22, including 16 on the offensive end. “I thought that would be one of our keys,” Rasmussen says. “They have pretty decent size as well and I thought we had to get position on them and control the boards and our girls inside just did an outstanding job of doing that.” Treynor made only 5 of 24 shots in the opening half as they watched IKM race out to a 31-11 lead at the break. “Probably the worst nightmare realized,” says Cardinals coach Gail Hartigan. “They hadn’t played well for two games and we’d played well for two games. You knew the pendulum could maybe slide the other direction and it slid a long ways in the other direction.”
