By Pat Harty

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – A game that had mismatch written all over it lived up to expectations on Friday.

The fourth-ranked West High girls basketball team bolted to a 15-2 lead and was never threatened while pounding Dubuque Senior 78-37 on Senior Night at the West High gym.

West improved to 16-3 overall and 10-1 in the Mississippi Valley Conference, while Senior fell to 1-17 and 1-9 in conference play.

The Women of Troy clinched at least a tie of the Mississippi Division with Friday’s victory.

“We didn’t really take this team lightly because we knew a conference title is something we really want to achieve this year, and hopefully, a state title,” said West senior Katie McGrane, who came off the bench to score eight points. “We kind of just put it in our minds, we were like, alright, let’s get hyped up for this game and let’s go out there and just show people what we can do.”

“We’ve had a pretty rough past couple games and we decided it was time to step up our game and practices have been serious lately and we’ve kind of stepped into our mode.”

McGrane was referring to West having lost two of its previous three games heading into Friday’s matchup with Senior. The Women of Troy lost to Cedar Falls 75-66 last Friday and to West Des Moines Valley 77-71 on Jan. 21.

“We wanted to come out and get off to a good start,” said West coach B.J. Mayer. “We’ve struggled with starts lately, especially on kind of an emotional night for our kids. So it was good to get out to a big lead. It got lots of kids playing time and get out of here with a nice win.”

West made 11-of-18 field-goal attempts in the first quarter and led 25-8 after the first 8-minute period. The lead swelled to 48-13 by the end of the second quarter.

Senior only made 5-of-22 field-goal attempts in the first half and had 18 turnovers by halftime.

The third quarter started with a continuous clock, which goes into effect when a team leads by at least 35 points.

“It’s sometimes hard when they’ve only got one win, but our kids have been pretty motivated after a rough last week and a week-and-a-half ago when we played Valley, City and Cedar Falls,” Mayer said. “To go one-and-two is not what we were hoping for. We’ve been pretty motivated in wanting to get back out there.”

McGrane was emotional after the game knowing that her senior season is coming down the home stretch.

“It’s really hard to say goodbye,” McGrane said. “I’ve played with these girls for three to four years and it’s pretty emotional to tear up the floor one last time with them.

“I know we have our regional games here. But this is my last regular-season game here and these girls mean so much to me. It’s pretty hard to let it go.”

Dubuque Senior         6   7    6 18 – 37

West High                  25 23 13 17 – 78

Dubuque Senior (37) – Sachi Biehl 3-6 0-0 9, Alli Udelhofen 3-6 2-4 8, Kai Biehl 3-11 0-0 7, Hannah Bakey 2-4 0-0 4, Emily Mott 1-7 0-0 2, Abbie Edminster 0-2 2-3 2, Bridget Weber 1-5 1-2 3, Abby Marting 1-4 0-0 2, Rebecca Schueller 0-0 0-0 0, Autumn Wernimont 0-0 0-0 0, Lauryn Doepke 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 13-45 5-9 37.

West High (78) – Logan Cook 4-7 0-0 8, Rachael Saunders 3-7 1-1 8, Emma Koch 4-4 2-2 10, Lauren Zacharias 6-10 0-0 14, Maddie Huinker 0-5 3-4 3, Ali Tauchen 4-5 0-1 8, Katie McGrane 4-8 0-0 8, Cailyn Morgan 2-4 0-0 6, Paige Beckner 1-4 0-0 2, Carrie Callahan 0-1 1-2 1, Sydney Allen 0-1 3-4 3, Cora Saunders 2-4 2-2 7, Isabel Smith 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 30-60 12-16 78.

3-point goals – Senior 4 (Sachi Biehl 3, Kai Biehl); West 6 (Zacharias 2, Morgan 2, R. Saunders, C. Saunders). Fouls – Senior 12, West 8.