Pat Harty

Your Prep Sports 

IOWA CITY – On a night when the City High girls basketball team’s performance was far from perfect, it still found a way to remain perfect on the season from a record standpoint.

The top-ranked Little Hawks needed a furious comeback in the fourth quarter to withstand Class 4A No. 8 Cedar Rapids Xavier’s upset bid on Friday at the City High gymnasium.

Class 5A No. 1 City High scored 11 consecutive points late in the fourth quarter and escaped with a 65-64 victory.

Xavier led 52-42 after three quarters, but then only made four baskets in the fourth quarter, including an inconsequential 3-pointer right before time had expired.

“Xavier, first of all, take your hat off, they always play us tough,” said City High coach Bill McTaggart. “I’ve followed them and this is the best they’ve looked.”

City High struggled with transition defense in the first quarter as Xavier made several easy baskets in the paint off fast-break layups.

“I haven’t seen them play this fast tempo,” McTaggart said. “They played great. It was too bad somebody had to lose.

“I was getting a kink in my neck. They were just getting layup after layup. Their first six points were layups. They really did a nice job of pushing the ball on us. And sometimes when we’re off on our threes, the other team gets fastbreaks and long rebounds.”

City High improved to 11-0 on the season, while Xavier fell to 8-4.

Senior Aubrey Joens led four Little Hawks in double figures with 25 points. She also made two free throws with 7.2 seconds remaining to give the Little Hawks a four-point cushion.

Senior guard Paige Rocca finished with 12 points and made a huge 3-point basket from the baseline that trimmed the deficit to 61-59 with 2:34 remaining, while senior point guard Rose Nkumu scored 11 points for the Little Hawks.

“They come up big at the end, that senior leadership,” McTaggart said. “We’re getting everybody’s best shot.”

Nkumu assumed that Friday’s game would be close and hotly contested because Xavier usually rises to the occasion against the Little Hawks.

City High also struggled with its shooting throughout the game, making just 20-of-60 shots from the field.

However, the Little Hawks compensated by outscoring Xavier 21-8 from the free throw line.

“Every time we play Xavier they always give us their best shot and they’re a really tough squad when they play together and we saw that from them tonight,” Nkumu said. “They did a really good job of keying on our key players and they took my drive away and they took our shooters away.”

And yet, the Little Hawks still found a way to prevail at the end.

Sophomore forward Eviyon Richardson only scored two points, but she grabbed an offensive rebound following a missed free throw by Ella Cook late in the fourth quarter that helped to setup Rocca’s 3-pointer from the baseline.

Richardson also tipped the ball to Ella Cook after another missed free throw, and Cook then made a short bank shot in the paint to give City High a 62-61 lead with 1:21 left to play.

It was Cook's only basket of the game.

“You take away that and we lose by one,” McTaggart said.

Aubrey Joens credited City High’s defense in the fourth quarter for being the difference down the stretch.

Xavier scored 18 points in the first quarter and 23 in the second quarter, but then was held to just 23 points in the second half.

“They got a lot of points in that first half and we needed to eliminate those later on in the game,” Aubrey Joens said. “So playing hard and getting good stops down the stretch was important.”

CR Xavier     18  23  11  12  –  64

City High      18  12  12  23  –  65

CR Xavier (64) – Aree Beckmann 5-14 2-2 12, Caitlynn Daniels 7-16 1-2 18, Aubrey Jones 2-5 2-2 6, Libby Arnold 4-6 2-4 10, Mary Kate Moeder 2-2 1-4 6, Brielle Bastian 2-2 0-0 4, Maya Karl 3-3 0-3 6, Lexi Turner 1-2 0-1 2. Totals 26-50 8-18 64.

City High (65) – Aubrey Joens 7-15 8-18 25, Rose Nkumu 3-15 5-7 11, Paige Rocca 2-8 6-9 12, Ella Cook 1-3 1-2 3, Kelsey Joens 4-13 1-2 10, Eviyon Richardson 1-5 0-2 2, Andie Westlake 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 20-60 21-32 65.

3-point goals – CR Xavier 4 (Daniels 3 Moeder); City High 6 (Aubrey Joens 3, Paige Rocca 2, Kelsey Joens). Fouls – CR Xavier 24, City High 17.