Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – City High wasn’t perfect in its first game back following the holiday break.

Moments of the Little Hawks’ matchup with cross-town rival Liberty High on Tuesday weren’t even very pretty.

However, City High did enough on both ends of the court to stretch its win streak to three with a 53-37 win over Liberty High (0-3) in Iowa City.

“We aren’t perfect, everybody is going to make mistake and tonight definitely wasn’t a perfect game we had a couple of mistakes but we will fix those in practice,” City High junior Eviyon Richardson said. “We will watch film, go over the mistakes and try to correct them for the next game so we can be even better.”

Kelsey Joens led three City High players in double figures with a game-high 20 as Class 5A eighth-ranked City High overcame 37 percent shooting, several spurts of sloppy play and some spotty foul trouble while improving to 3-1 on the season.

“We took a step backward tonight, we played much better against Cedar Rapids Kennedy,” City High coach Bill McTaggart said. “We were making progress and we were kind of disappointed because we looked a lot better against Cedar Rapids Kennedy.”

Richardson added 15 points and nine rebounds and Ella Cook had 13 points as City High won its third straight game following a season-opening loss to West High.

“Tonight was a win and that’s all you can ask for, that’s the most important thing,” Cook said. “Liberty has gotten a lot better but there are some little things that we need to clean up because we have the raw skills that if we put it together we’ll be o.k.”

The opening quarter seemed to offer some insight on the type of up and down evening it would be for City High.

City High needed more than two and a half minutes to score its first point of the game and was held scoreless for the final 2:42 of the quarter.

Joens and Cook were the only Little Hawks to score in the opening eight minutes as Richardson spent much of the quarter on the bench after picking up a pair of early fouls.

Despite its struggles City High led 9-0 after forcing eight Liberty High turnovers and holding the Lightning to 0-of-8 shooting in the opening eight minutes.

“We had some moments tonight where we did some good things and some individual performances that were encouraging,” McTaggart said. “We just have to continue to improve.”

City High built a 24-11 halftime lead and led by 21 points after a quick 6-0 flurry to close the third period.

After going without a field goal attempt in the opening quarter Richardson hit all three of her shots in the second quarter and both of her attempts in the third quarter.

Richardson finished 7-of-8 from the field on her way to 15 points while Cook and Joens combined to go 13-of-18 from the free throw line.

City High will face a tough task on Thursday as it travels to seventh-ranked Cedar Falls.

“This group has never played together so not having a lot of time to practice and learn how each other works has been a challenge,” Cook said. “The last few years it was the same core group that played so we knew how each other worked and we are still learning how to play with each other but once we put it together I think we’ll be pretty good.”

Haley Schroeder led Liberty High with 11 points while Avery Gaudet added eight and Ava Meyer had seven.

City High                    9  15  17  12  –  53

Liberty High              0  11   9   17  –  37

City High (53) – Georgia Kimm 1-9 0-0 2, Kelsey Joens 6-19 6-10 20, Eviyon Richardson 7-8 0-0 15, Andie Westlake 1-5 0-2 3, Ella Cook 3-7 7-8 13, Kacie Earl 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 18-49 13-20 53.

Liberty High (37) – Avery Gaudet 4-10 0-0 8, Brynlee Slockett 1-3 0-1 2, Haley Schroeder 4-6 1-2 11, Haley Napoli 1-3 0-0 2, Keiko Ono-Fullard 2-4 0-0 5, Ava Meyer 3-7 1-1 7, Kennedy Daugherty 0-6 2-6 2, Sunny Yarnell 0-4 0-2 0, Totals 15-43 4-12 37.

3-point field goals – ICH 4-21 (Kimm 0-5, Joens 2-10, Richardson 1-1, Westlake 1-4, Cook 0-1), ICL 3-17 (Gaudet 0-2, Slockett 0-2, Schroeder 2-4, Napoli 0-2, Ono-Fullard 1-2, Meyer 0-2, Daugherty 0-2, Yarnell 0-1). Rebounds – ICH 31 (Joens 9, Richardson 9), ICL 37 (Daugherty 8). Turnovers – ICH 13, ICL 26. Total fouls – ICH 12, ICL 16. Fouled out – ICH (Richardson). Technical fouls – None.

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