Douglas Miles

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – As Meena Tate unleashed her 10th free-throw attempt, she quickly warned her teammates, “That’s off!”

It bounced home anyhow.

That was the kind of day it was for the West High junior, who led all scorers with 24 points, drained all 12 of her free attempts and helped the Class 5A eighth-ranked Trojans dominate the second half of a 49-32 comeback win over No. 14 Cedar Falls in a regional semifinal Saturday at West High School.

“It is just realizing that every point counts,” Tate said. “And those free throws are really essential. And just being in the zone, that is basically why I made them all.”

After trailing by as many as seven points in the first half and five at halftime, West High (19-3) exploded in the second half.

Tate scored her team’s first eight points – including six from the charity stripe – as the Trojans quickly evened the score at 25-25 midway through the third quarter.

“At halftime we were just like, ‘This is a good team but we’re better’,” Tate said. “‘We shouldn’t be losing right now.’ Losing this game is not like any other game. If we lose, we are done. We weren’t going to do that. That wasn’t going to happen.”

After a three-pointer from Cedar Falls senior Sarah Albaugh briefly returned the lead to the Tigers at 29-26, West High dropped the hammer.

Over the last 10-plus minutes of game time, the Trojans scored 23 of the game’s final 26 points, including three baskets and six more free throws from Tate.

“I think she just got aggressive,” West Coach BJ Mayer said. “She has been that all year long for us. She plays against some those kids in some AAU, so they know her. They do a good job of switching, they are very well-coached, so she was able to get some mismatches off of those switches and take advantage of those.”

West High sophomore Lucy Wolf – who started seven games earlier this year but has become a valuable energizer off the bench since her return from injury and illness – scored a career-high 14 points, including all four of her team’s three-point baskets.

“I just had really two good practices,” Wolf said. “I took that momentum from those two and kind of just worked it into this game and tried to find those open shots.”

Albaugh paced Cedar Falls with 12 points, freshman Mya Crawford added 10 and sophomore Grace Knutson grabbed eight rebounds.

Denied a chance to play for a third trip in a row to the state tournament, it will be just the second time in the last eight years that the state tournament does not include Cedar Falls (15-8).

“It is going to be tough watching it on TV,” Albaugh said. “But hopefully it makes the underclassmen want to go get it more for next year.”

Sophomore Melae’ Lacy and junior Anna Prouty each posted 10 rebounds for West High, which can reach the state tournament for the second-consecutive year with a win at seventh-ranked West Des Moines Valley in a regional final on Tuesday.

“That is obviously the goal,” Mayer said. “West Des Moines Valley is a good program. Not many people right now think that we have much of a chance because we have to go to Valley. So we are going to just go play, have a lot of fun. I think tonight in that first half we were pretty tight and nervous. We will be a lot more relaxed on Tuesday because we have played a game and because the pressure is on them by them hosting a game.”

Cedar Falls      8 14    7   3   –  32

West High      10  7   14 18  –  49

Cedar Falls (32) – Sarah Albaugh 4 2-2 12, Grace Knutson 2 0-0 5, Mya Crawford 3 3-5 10, Anna Sandvold 0 0-0 0, Sydney Remmert 0 0-0 0, Morgan Linck 1 2-2 5, Totals 10 7-9 32.

West High (49) – Avery Vest 0 0-0 0, Meena Tate 6 12-12 24, Melae’ Lacy 1 0-0 2, Keiko Ono-Fullard 1 2-2 4, Anna Prouty 2 1-2 5, Lucy Wolf 5 0-0 14, Carolyn Pierce 0 0-0 0, Emma Ingersoll-Weng 0 0-0 0, Totals 15 15-16 49.

Three-point goals – Cedar Falls 5 (Albaugh 2, Knutson 1, Crawford 1, Linck 1), West High 4 (Wolf 4). Rebounds – Cedar Falls 21 (Knutson 8), Iowa City West 36 (Lacy 10, Prouty 10). Fouled out – None.

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