BOYS HOOPS: Paul Berg named All-POI honorable mention

The Pride of Iowa Conference continued honoring their best from the recently-concluded regular season by releasing their 2024-25 boys all-conference teams last week. The annual list showcasing the best of the conference included one Nodaway Valley player in senior Paul Berg. He was was tabbed as an honorable mention.

Nodaway Valley completed the season 4-20 under first-year head coach Mick Long, which was a two-win improvement from the season prior. The Wolverines were 3-13 in the Pride of Iowa Conference, winning two more games in the league than they did last year.

For the second-straight season, Nodaway Valley was able to win an opening-round postseason game as the Wolverines blitzed Diagonal from playoff contention, 68-27, before they were eliminated by seventh-ranked Coon Rapids-Bayard in the following round.

Long said there are several reasons why Berg is worthy of all-conference honorable mention.

“Paul is very athletic and I think he showed that this season. He had some swagger on the court and led us in scoring for most of the season,” Long said. “He led us in rebounds and blocked shots.”

It was late in the season when sophomore Ty Rardin overcame Berg as the team’s leading scorer, but Berg finished the season with 7.1 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds per game. He also averaged 1.2 steals and 1.2 assists per game, starting 23 of the team’s 24 games. He made eight 3-pointers, which was third-best on the team.

Berg was especially handy around the basket on second, finishing second in the POI, two blocked shots behind East Union’s Jase Pettit, with 47 on the year. He had 179 rebounds, which was sixth-highest in the league and two away from cracking into the top-5 in the conference.

There were three unanimous all-conference selections to the first team. They were seniors Gabe Funk from Lenox and Cam Seuferer from Southeast Warren, as well as Mount Ayr junior Jackson Ruggles.

Other first team picks were Trey Wight from Martensdale-St. Marys, Nash Dykes from Central Decatur and Cael Hogan from Southwest Valley.

Southeast Warren won the Pride of Iowa Conference title, beating Mount Ayr both times they played to win a head-to-head tiebraker between the two teams that each finished 14-2 in the POI. The Raiders had the most picks on the all-conference team with four while Martensdale-St. Marys, Central Decatur, Southwest Valley and Southeast Warren all had three selections.

The Wolverines say goodbye to three other seniors from the team in Ben Hoover, Garreett Welsch and Christian Putney.

Hoover started 22 of the 24 games he played in this season and was another athletic player to pair with Berg in the frontcourt. Hoover averaged career-highs in points with 5.5 a game and rebounds with 4.0 per game. He had a stretch of games after Christmas where he either led or was one of the leading scorers in the game for NV.

Welsch started six games of 19 he played in in his first full varsity season. He averaged 1.9 points, 1.1 assists and 1.0 rebounds a game. Welsch was a good ball handler and possessed the ability to penetrate and find open players on the perimeter.

Putney played in 20 gams and averaged 1.4 points a game. He added some offense off the bench and an ability to shoot from the outside. He made six 3-pointers and grabbed 25 rebounds.

“The seniors were good this year, they didn’t have bad attitudes and that was great,” Long said. “I feel for them because they’ve had a lot of coaches prior to this year and that is hard on anyone,” he said. Long was the group’s third head coach in four years, also including Thad Tussey and Jeremy Blake.

“I am excited for next year. We progressed and got better as the season went on. For example, we got a lot of kids playing time and we know what kids can do in POI games. We saw good post/forward play development and we really were playing our best at the end of the year,” Long said.

Nodaway Valley will return their top scorer in Rardin, who averaged 8.7 points and made 47 3-pointers in his first year as a starter. He also had team highs with 63 assists and in both free throw percentage and free throw makes.

Other starters Titus Hamer (3.2 ppg) and Parker Schneider (3.2 ppg, 3.6 rpg) will return next year as seniors and Titan Foster (4.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg) returns for his sophomore season. In all, the Wolverines potentially will have a senior class of Hamer, Schneider, Jaxson Stringer, Dyllan Shannon and Jacob Fry; a junior class of Rardin, Luke Kading and Paul Kading and a sophomore class of Foster, Jack Berg and Cassius Burnside.