Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Meena Tate couldn’t give the specifics of her two late-game three-pointers on Friday.

Tate wasn’t sure how much time remained or exactly what the score was when she converted the pair of fourth-quarter treys.

The West High junior just knew they were big shots.

Huge is more like it.

Tate twice gave West High the lead with three-pointers in the final 5:15 as Class 5A ninth-ranked West High rallied past No. 13 Liberty High 63-53 in a cross-town thriller in Iowa City.

“When I’m playing sometimes I forget about the scores o when I made those I didn’t really know what the score was,” Tate said. “But I just knew they were big.”

Tate came up big more than just twice in the final eight minutes.

She scored 13 of her game-high 26 points in the final 5:15 as West High improved to 14-3 on the season and remained unbeaten in seven games all-time against Liberty High.

“We’ve had our eyes set on this game since we played them last time,” Tate said. “Liberty hasn’t beat West yet and we want to continue that.”

Liberty High (11-7) led for most of the game and was up by as many as five in the third-quarter.

The Lightning led 49-48 after an Ava Meyer three-pointer with 4:31 left but couldn’t close it out dropping its seventh game of the season to a top-10 team, three of which have come by six points or fewer and another in overtime.

“Obviously the effort is there, our girls played as hard as they possible could but late in the fourth things didn’t go our way,” Liberty High coach Jamie Brandt said. “We had a couple of empty possessions and (West High) wins close games, they’ve been doing that for a long time but we are so close. We are so close and we will get there.”

Tate hit her first three-pointer of the game with 5:15 left to give West High a 48-46 lead but Meyer answered with a triple from the top of the key.

Tate responded with her second three-pointer to give West High a 51-49 lead it would never give up.

The junior scored 10 consecutive West High points and had 13 of the game’s final 19 points as West High closed on a 15-4 run over the final 4:03.

The 26 points for Tate came after she scored six in a win over Marion on Thursday.

“She’s been struggling lately, teams have really paid a lot of attention to her and I think she felt the weight of the world was on her and we told her just to go out and have fun,” West High coach BJ Mayer said. “For her to do what she did, it’s just a tip of the hat because she made one field goal last night.”

Anna Prouty had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds for West High as the Trojans finished with a 33-19 rebounding edge.

Junior guard Keiko Ono-Fullard had seven of her 12 points in the fourth quarter including four key free throws in the final minute.

“We got lots of contributions,” Mayer said. “Meena was great and Keiko got to the rim and we hit some threes and that’s what we do we play team basketball and we were able to get it done.”

Barney was brilliant for Liberty High, scoring 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting while Avery Gaudet added 11 points for the Lightning.

“She is one of the hardest working kids I’ve seen and it goes back to just putting in the time,” Brandt said of Barney. “She puts in the time and you can see that.”

Liberty High shot 62 percent from the field in the first half while taking a 33-30 lead but was limited to 35 percent shooting after halftime.

Barney had 16 of her 25 in the first half.

“I thought our defense the second half was a lot better,” Mayer said. “We moved some kids around and I thought Melae’ (Lacy) was really good on Jasmine and made it difficult for her.”

Liberty High             11  22  8  12  –  53

West High                   9   21  8  25  –  63

Liberty High (53) – Avery Gaudet 4-9 0-0 11, Libby Allen 0-1 0-0 0, Jasmine Barney 10-16 2-2 25, Bella Tafolla 0-2 0-0 0, Kennedy Daugherty 0-1 2-2 2, Sunny Yarnell 1-3 1-2 3, Brynlee Slockett 1-1 0-0 3, Ava Meyer 3-4 0-0 7, Madeline Casey 1-4 0-0 2, Totals 20-41 5-6 53.

West High (63) – Lucy Wolf 4-7 0-0 9, Emma Ingersoll-Weng 1-3 0-0 2, Avery Vest 0-1 0-0 0, Meena Tate 8-13 8-11 26, Carolyn Pierce 1-4 1-1 3, Melae’ Lacy 0-6 0-0 0, Keiko Ono-Fullard 3-6 6-6 12, Anna Prouty 5-10 1-2 11, Totals 22-50 16-20 63.

Three-point field goals – ICL 8-24 (Gaudet 3-8, Allen 0-1, Barney 3-7, Tafolla 0-2, Slockett 1-1, Meyer 1-2, Casey 0-3), ICW 3-12 (Wolf 1-3, Vest 0-1, Tate 2-4, Pierce 0-1, Lacy 0-2, Ono-Fullard 0-1). Rebounds – ICL 19 (Barney 4), ICW 33 (Prouty 10). Turnovers – ICL 11, ICW 8. Total fouls – ICL 16, ICW 8. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – ICL (Barney).

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