Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – The Mississippi Valley Conference schedule always provides a challenge.

Toss in the usual non-conference challenges that West High coach BJ Mayer likes to add and the Trojans are used to running through a gauntlet of a regular season schedule.

Up until Friday West High had managed to remain almost unscathed against a string of relentless challenges.

Down one of its top players to injury and without several other reserves the challenging schedule finally caught up to West High.

Class 5A third-ranked Waterloo West forced fifth-ranked West High into 29 turnovers and shot 62 percent from the field in a 46-point second half while pulling away for a 67-42 win over the Trojans in a Mississippi Valley Conference Valley Division top-five matchup in Iowa City.

“Against them you can’t take breaks,” Mayer said. “You can’t have bad quarters or minutes and we had a few of those tonight and they exposed that.”

West High (7-2) had a two-game winning streak snapped with the loss, its second of the season to a top-three ranked opponent.

The win was the sixth in a row for Waterloo West (9-1) which hasn’t lost since falling to City High on December 10.

Already down senior guard Emma Ingersoll-Weng who is out with an injury West High played without a couple of reserves on Friday.

I’m not a big excuse guy but we have a lot of kids out with injuries and illnesses and we are throwing kids in there that don’t have very many minutes,” Mayer said. “If you have a bad two-minute stretch against a team like that it goes from two to 12.”

Despite shooting 26 percent from the floor and committing 19 first-half turnovers West High was in the game at the half.

The Trojans held Waterloo West to 33 percent shooting in the first half and trailed 21-12 at the break.

“In the first half we were down nine and I thought we played really good defensively but we turned it over 20 times in the first half and you can’t do that,” Mayer said. “I thought the second half we weren’t as good defensively but we found some things on offense that worked but you have to put it all together against a team like that.”

Waterloo West pulled away quickly after halftime.

The junior back court tandem of Sahara Williams and Halli Poock scored 20 of Waterloo West’s 23 third-quarter points as the WaHawks built a 44-26 lead.

Poock had 18 of her game-high 24 points in the second half and Williams had was 6-of-9 from the floor in the second half and finished with 23 points.

“I thought the first half we really rebounded well and actually guarded them pretty well,” Mayer said. “You expect Halli (Poock) and Sahara (Williams) to do what they did in the second half, that’s the kind of players that they are. They aren’t going to quit shooting and they got hot.”

Meena Tate led West High with 15 points while Anna Prouty had eight points and 11 rebounds for West High.

Melae’ Lacy had seven points and eight rebounds for the Trojans.

“In order to be good you have to play these kind of teams,” Mayer said. “We need to play Waterloo West and City and Xavier and Southeast Polk because that are the teams that you want to beat. As players and coaches it really hurts that we got beat by 20 something but I know what our kids are going to do, I know what our coaches are going to do we are going to come back to work on Monday and we are going to continue to try to get better.”

Waterloo West                      9  12  23  23  –  67

West High                              7    5  14  16  –  42

West High (42) – Avery Vest 0-7 0-0 0, Meena Tate 7-12 0-0 15, Aly Skala 1-2 0-0 2, Melae’ Lacy 2-9 3-4 7, Keiko Ono-Fullard 2-6 0-0 6, Anna Prouty 3-5 2-4 8, Zola Gross 1-1 0-0 2, Kristiana Washington 1-3 0-1 2, Totals 17-45 5-9 42.

Waterloo West (67) – Jaide Domatob 2-2 0-0 6, Halli Poock 9-19 4-4 24, Charlotte Gettman 0-1 0-0 0, Isabell Lederman 0-0 1-2 1, Sahara Williams 9-16 2-2 23, TaNeesa Martin 1-1 0-0 3, Sierra Moore 1-5 2-4 4, Faith Howard 0-1 0-0 0, Brooklynn Smith 3-8 0-0 6, Totals 25-53 9-12 67.

3-point field goals – ICW 3-19 (Vest 0-6, Tate 1-3, Lacy 0-4, Ono-Fullard 2-6), WW 8-15 (Domatob 2-2, Poock 2-4, Gettman 0-1, Williams 3-6, Martin 1-1, Howard 0-1). Rebounds – ICW 33 (Prouty 11), WW 26 (Moore 8). Turnovers – ICW 29, WW 12. Total fouls – ICW 7, WW 9. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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