Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – West High overcame a lot in its Class 4A state tournament opener.

The Trojans battled through foul trouble, survived a nearly 11-minute field goal drought and fought back from a nine-point second-half deficit.

Ankeny senior point guard Braxton Bayless proved to simply be too much for West High to overcome.

Bayless scored 18 of his game-high 41 points in the fourth quarter as Ankeny held off fourth-ranked West High 68-54 on Wednesday in a 4A quarterfinal at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“It was one dude really,” West High senior Marcus Morgan said. “I thought we had a really good game plan, we had a good scout we just didn’t execute.”

West High (21-3) hadn’t allowed more than 57 points in a game this season and entered the state tournament holding teams to 40.9 per game.

Bayless eclipsed that total by himself with a transition dunk with 14 seconds left that put an exclamation point on the first state tournament win for Ankeny (19-5) since 2012.

“This is my best game and my first dunk comes at Wells too,” Bayless said. “The adrenaline had me going.”

West High got 27 points and 10 rebounds from senior center Even Brauns, with 15 of those points coming during a 21-point first quarter for the Trojans that ended with West High leading by six.

The rest of the game belonged to Bayless who scored 35 points while making 15-of-15 free throws in the final three quarters.

“(The plan) was just getting to the paint,” Bayless said. “If they were in man we knew we could just go by them and they would have to help so just dish it off to our teammates and find the right man and make the basket.”

The 6-foot-1 Bayless finished 12-of-20 from the field and 17-of-19 from the free throw line, grabbed 10 rebounds and had 10 assists.

Behind its senior point guard Ankeny shot 59 percent from the field and made 29-of-38 free throws.

Ankeny will face fifth-ranked Cedar Falls (22-2) in the 4A semifinals on Thursday at 8:15 p.m.  

“We are all frustrated with the way we played and then tip of the cap they have a lot of seniors,” West High coach Steve Bergman said. “And they have a guy.”

West High led 27-24 midway through the second quarter after senior guard Nick Pepin converted a pair of free throws with 4:36 left in the first half.

That’s when Bayless went to work, taking advantage of the absence of West High junior Marcus Morgan who was on the bench with a pair of fouls.

Bayless scored eight of his 13 second-quarter points in the final 4:03 as the Hawks closed the half on a 12-3 run.

“Here is the truth, we have small guards, we have quick enough guys but we are real small,” Bergman said. “So we tried a bigger kid on him and our plan for help kind of fell apart with Marcus sitting on the bench.”

West High went the final 5:48 of the first half without a field goal and missed its first eight field goal attempts of the second half before Pepin hit a 3-pointer with 2:53 left in the third quarter.

Despite the field goal drought the Trojans battled back from a nine-point third-quarter deficit to tie the score at conventional 3-point play by Pepin with 5:43 left.

The game remained tied for just 26 seconds.  

Bayless converted his own 3-point play to give the Hawks the lead back, starting a personal 7-2 run by the senior that put Ankeny up 55-49 with 2:25 left.

“You have to do the things that you can control and we didn’t do that tonight,” Pepin said. “We struggled in that second quarter and we came out and we wanted to make a run and we did a little bit of that but it wasn’t enough.”

Bayless made all 10 of his fourth-quarter free throws as Ankeny went 13-of-16 from the line in the final quarter.

“We fought back,” Morgan said. “We were right there obviously but it’s tough when they shoot 40 free throws.

Pepin finished with 10 points for West High and Morgan had eight for the Trojans which failed to reach the semifinals for just the second time during their state-record string of 10 state tournament trips.

Brecken Manus added 12 points for Ankeny but it was all about Bayless.

“Our guys our great, they work hard every day it’s one of the best groups I’ve ever had they have overachieved all year, not so much today,” Bergman said. “I knew that this was going to be a tough matchup because of him.”

West High       21   9   8  16  –  54

Ankeny           15  21  7  25  –  68

West High (54) – Tate Crane 3-8 0-0 6, Joey Goodman 0-4 1-3 1, Nick Pepin 3-7 3-3 10, Marcus Morgan 3-8 1-2 8, Even Brauns 8-12 11-13 27, Christian Barnes 0-4 0-0 0, Ben Vander Leest 1-6 0-0 2,

Ankeny (68) – Braxton Bayless 12-20 17-19 41, Jaxon Smith 0-1 2-2 2, Jordan Kumm 1-3 2-5 4, Brecken Manus 4-4 3-6 12, Nolan Otten 0-1 0-0 0, Ryan Crandell 1-2 4-4 6, Ron Mamuya 0-0 1-2 1, Braden Simonsen 1-1 0-0 2, Totals 19-32 29-39 68.

3-point field goals – ICW (Crane 0-1, Goodman 0-1, Pepin 1-3, Morgan 1-5, Barnes 0-3, Vander Leest 0-2), ANK 1-4 (Bayless 0-3, Manus 1-1). Rebounds – ICW 25 (Brauns 10), ANK 28 (Bayless 10). Assists – ICW 9 (Vander Leest 3), ANK 6 (Manus, Bayless 2). Turnovers – ICW 8, ANK 11. Total fouls – ICW 26, ANK 23. Fouled out – ICW (Morgan, Pepin), ANK (Mamuya, Otten). Technical fouls – None.

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