West High Has Four-game Winning Streak Snapped With Loss to No. 14 Cedar Falls
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
IOWA CITY – Sometimes in sports it’s just not your night.
That was the case for West High on Friday though Grace Knutson and Class 5A No. 14 Cedar Falls had plenty to do with the Trojans’ tough night.
Knutson poured in a game-high 26 points and Cedar Falls limited West High to a season-low 29 points on 24 percent shooting in a 38-29 win in a Mississippi Valley Conference cross-divisional game in Iowa City.
“It was a perfect storm, we had a couple of open shots that we don’t hit and if we hit those it’s a one point game at the end and it’s anybody’s game,” West High coach Nate Frese said. “I knew it was going to be a slugfest, I knew it was going to come down to just a few possessions that decided it.”
Ninth-ranked West High (9-3) had a four-game winning streak snapped with the loss, it’s first since back-to-back setbacks to Linn-Mar and Sioux City Heelan on December 16th and 17th.
The Trojans scored at least 58 points in all four games during its winning streak, averaging 59 per game during that stretch.
West High could never get going offensively on Friday against the half-court man-to-man defense of Cedar Falls.
“That group was a well-oiled machine,” Frese said. “They didn’t have any breakdowns. I can think of one breakdown maybe in the game other than that we didn’t get anything easy.”
The win was the fifth straight for Cedar Falls (8-4) which returned to the Class 5A rankings on Thursday.
Cedar Falls forced West High into 14 turnovers, limited the Trojans to 10-of-41 shooting and just eight free throw attempts and didn’t allow more than 11 points in a single quarter on Friday.
West High led 11-8 after Carolyn Pierce beat the first-quarter buzzer with a 3-pointer but the Trojans scored only 18 points the rest of the way.
The Trojans shot 18 percent from the floor and were 1-of-10 from 3-point range over the final 24 minutes.
“Since the break I think we’ve really started to buy into what we want to do defensively and really we are just getting everybody on the same page and they work really hard it,” Cedar Falls coach Greg Groen said. “They kind of pride themselves on it and they want to do well on that end and that’s the type of effort that we have to have to beat teams like Iowa City West.”
In a game in which points were at a premium Knutson provided almost all the offense the Tigers would need.
The 5-foot-10 junior guard had 15 of her game-high 26 points in the second half including eight in the fourth quarter.
“Credit goes to her it’s just a lot of work in the offseason on her part and her getting in the gym and working on those things and creating ways to get open,” Groen said of Knutson. “This has really been her year where she has really been able to complete those moves and do those things for us.”
Frese was actually relatively pleased with the way his team defended Knutson who entered averaging 20.3 points per game and finished 10-of-22 from the floor.
No other Cedar Falls player had more than four points as the rest of the Tigers went a combined 4-of-21 from the floor.
“Going into it we said she is going to get her points, we aren’t going to hold her much below her average, she is going to get 20 or 22 but we said if she scores 25 and nobody gets anything else we’ll feel good,” Frese said. “We certainly didn’t think we were going to be at 22 points with six minutes left in the game.”
West High led 18-17 at the half and 22-21 after an Anna Prouty putback with 4:47 remaining in the third quarter.
Gabie Hanks hit a 3-pointer that just beat the shot clock to give Cedar Falls a 24-22 lead and Knutson hit a triple with 31 seconds left in the quarter to put the Tigers up 27-22.
Three-pointers by Knutson and Johnna Dieken to open the fourth quarter made it a 12-0 Cedar Falls run and gave the Tigers a 33-22 lead with 5:26 remaining.
“All credit to them,” Frese said. “What we saw on film was this is going to be way harder than 7-4 against 9-2. I felt like that could have been a 13-0 team.”
Meena Tate had seven of her team-high 10 points in the fourth quarter for West High.
Prouty had six points and 13 rebounds while Grace Fincham had five points and eight rebounds and Pierce had five points.
Cedar Falls 8 9 10 11 – 38
West High 11 7 4 7 – 29
Cedar Falls (38) – Gabie Hanks 1-5 1-4 4, Grace Knutson 10-22 2-2 26, Johnna Dieken 1-2 0-0 3, Sophie Stanic 0-2 0-0 0, Karis Finley 1-7 0-0 3, Aniah Burks 1-3 0-0 2, Grace Hannam 0-2 0-0 0, Totals 14-43 3-6 38.
West High (29) – Meena Tate 2-11 5-6 10, Carolyn Pierce 2-6 0-0 5, Aly Skala 0-1 0-0 0, Melae’ Lacy 1-7 1-2 3, Anna Prouty 3-10 0-0 6, Grace Fincham 2-6 0-0 5, Totals 10-41 6-8 29.
3-point field goals – ICW 3-15 (Tate 1-4, Pierce 1-4, Skala 0-1, Lacy 0-3, Fincham 1-3), CF 7-21 (Hanks 1-3, Knutson 4-11, J. Dieken 1-1, Stanic 0-1, Finley 1-4, Hannam 0-1). Rebounds – ICW 33 (Prouty 13), CF 31 (Finley 7). Turnovers – ICW 14, CF 9. Total fouls – ICW 9, CF 9. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.
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