Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – In a season that has featured so few scoring slumps Clear Creek Amana couldn’t have picked a worse time for a rare offensive outage.

Clear Creek Amana connected on just 3-of-14 fourth-quarter field goal attempts as Sergeant Bluff-Luton pulled away late for a 55-46 win over the Clippers on Thursday in a Class 3A state semifinal at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“Obviously you can’t make them all,” Clear Creek Amana junior Christian Withrow said. “We just ran out of makes today.”

It was a fast-paced yet efficient offense that helped Clear Creek Amana (20-5) reach the state tournament for the first time since 1993 this season.

With a spot in the state title game on the line Thursday the Clippers couldn’t get anything to fall.

Clear Creek Amana shot 21 percent from the field and scored just 16 points in the second half after taking a 30-27 lead into the locker room.

The Clippers went nearly seven minutes without a field goal in the fourth quarter, scoring just two points in a span of 6:46 as Sergeant Bluff-Luton took control.

“Their length got to us,” Clear Creek Amana coach Brandon Clubb said. “It final got in our heads and we thought we had to adjust shots and do it quick and throw something up and we did better than I thought with that but it finally got to us.”

The 46 points were the second lowest total this season for Clear Creek Amana and fewest for the Clippers since scoring 37 in a December 20 loss to 3A qualifier Center Point-Urbana.

It was the first time

With three starters 6-foot-7 or taller Sergeant Bluff-Luton certainly played a roll in the Clippers late offensive struggles.

“We have always been guarding pretty well and obviously our length has a lot to do with it because we can contest a lot of shots that probably some other teams can’t and that makes a big difference,” Sergeant Bluff-Luton coach

Adam Vander Schaaf said. “I thought our guys were smart about how they guarded and gave a great effort and obviously our size helps.”

Sergeant Bluff-Luton (16-10) used a 12-2 fourth-quarter run to erase a two-point deficit and advance to the 3A title game for the second time in the past four seasons.

Clear Creek Amana led 39-37 when Withrow scoring on a driving layup 10 seconds into the fourth quarter.

Sergeant Bluff-Luton scored the next five points and never trailed again.

“We just ran out of makes today and any little cushion that late at this tournament they are going to try to burn clock and take the air out of the ball a little bit,” Clubb said. “That’s essentially what they did there.”

For the second consecutive game at the state tournament Clubb had a strong defensive plan and the Clippers executed it.

The plan to force the much taller Warriors to win the game from the perimeter worked well for most of the game.

Sergeant Bluff-Luton shot 33 3-pointers, including 30 in the first three quarters.

“We sagged we didn’t want them to get the rim and we were rolling the dice with the 3,” Clubb said. “(Majok) Majouk shot probably better than what he did normally, he had three. We wanted them to beat us outside of their comfort zone and that’s essentially what we were trying to do.”

Sergeant Bluff-Luton made its final two 3-point attempts, 49 seconds apart that helped break open a tight game.

Majok snapped a 39-all tie with his third 3-pointer of the game with 6:31 left and after Mike Potter went 1-of-2 at the free throw line Nick Miller hit his triple of the game to put the Warriors up 45-40 with 5:42 to go.

“In their substate game with Assumption they had really packed it in and with our size we kind of thought that was what was coming and we knew we had to make some shots,” Vander Schaaf said. “We do have good shooters, we didn’t knock them down early but we kept grinding and eventually we made a couple of big ones in the fourth quarter.”

Meanwhile Clear Creek Amana couldn’t get anything to go.

The Clippers went scoreless for nearly three minutes in the final four minutes of the game as Sergeant Bluff-Luton played keep away on the other end.

Clear Creek Amana shot 36 percent for the game but made just 11 of its 37 field goal attempts over the final three quarters.

“At the end of the day we know those shots were our shots,” Withrow said. “We know that’s what we can take and what we can make so we can’t be too mad at the outcome because we know that’s our basketball and we aren’t going to back down from our own basketball.”

Withrow led Clear Creek Amana with 17 points and seven rebounds while Tyler Schrepfer had 13 for the Clippers.

Daniel Wright led three players in double figures for Sergeant Bluff-Luton with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Majouk and Jake Layman each had 10.

Sergeant Bluff-Luton will face top-ranked Norwalk (23-3) in the 3A title game at 6:35 on Friday.

Clear Creek Amana will take on Ballard (19-7) in the third-place game at 10:20 a.m.

“There are some people that go their whole lives and not play a single game on this court and we get to play three,” Clubb said. “We have to keep our heads high and flush this one and turn around and get ready to go back after it tomorrow.”

Sergeant Bluff-Luton           16  11  10  18  –  55

Clear Creek Amana              14  16   7    9   –  46

Sergeant Bluff-Luton (55) – Majok Majouk 3-8 1-2 10, Nick Muller 3-8 0-0 9, Jake Layman 4-8 1-3 10, Deric Fitzgerald 2-4 2-3 6, Daniel Wright 3-11 5-7 13, Jacob Imming 2-6 0-0 5, Brady Schaap 0-3 0-0 0, Austin Freiberg 1-1 0-0 2, Totals 18-49 9-15 55.

Clear Creek Amana (46) – Nick O’Connor 1-3 0-0 3, Tyler Schrepfer 5-10 2-2 13, Christian Withrow 6-17 5-8 17, Mike Potter 0-5 3-4 3, TJ Bollers 2-5 1-2 5, Ryan Navara 1-1 0-0 3, Brock Reade 1-3 0-0 2, Kyle Schrepfer 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 16-45 11-16 46.

3-point field goals – CCA 3-13 (O’Connor 1-2, T. Schrepfer 1-6, Withrow 0-1, Potter 0-1, Navara 1-1, Reade 0-1, K. Schrepfer 0-1), SBL 10-33 (Majouk 3-8, Muller 3-8, Layman 1-4, Fitzgerald 0-1, Wright 2-9, Imming 1-2, Schaap 0-1). Rebounds – CCA 32 (Potter, Withrow 7), SBL 35 (Wright 10). Assists – CCA 3 (Schrepfer, Withrow, Potter 1), SBL 13 (Wright 5). Turnovers – CCA 7, SBL 2. Total fouls – CCA 15, SBL 11. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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