Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – For two quarters West High controlled just about everything in Mississippi Valley Conference Valley Division matchup with Cedar Rapids Washington on Friday night.

For a little more than three and a half quarter it looked like the Trojans might do enough to hang on for a win.

It was the final few minutes where things got away from West High.

Cedar Rapids Washington outscored West High 21-6 over the final 6:45 including a 12-2 run in the final two minutes on its way to a 65-56 win over the Trojans in Iowa City.

“They are good and we came out and played well and we just stopped playing with any discipline,” West High coach Steve Bergman said. “It’s pretty simple we got outscored by 21 in the second half and we just stopped playing with any discipline.”

Bergman is right, Cedar Rapids Washington certainly is good.

And the Warriors have been excellent of late.

Cedar Rapids Washington improved to 11-8 with the come-from-behind win in Friday and has now won four straight and eight of their last nine with the lone loss a 10-point setback at top-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

The Warriors are 9-2 since a 2-6 start to the season.

“We have an experienced group, a lot of these guys have been playing for four years but I think it was just guys getting familiar with new guys,” Cedar Rapids Washington coach Justin Decker said. “It’s a process and our league is so tough we just had to get these guys focused and prepared. Some nights we don’t play our best, and some nights we play pretty darn good.”

Friday saw both versions of the Warrior team Decker mentioned with the pretty darn good version showing up in the second half.

West High (10-9) closed the first half on a 17-6 run and led 36-24 at the break.

The Trojans shot 50 percent from the field in the first half and led by as many as 15 early in the third quarter.

“We didn’t execute down the stretch and we didn’t defend very well in the second half,” Bergman said. “I thought we defended great in the first half and we executed against their zone great.”

The lead evaporated quickly.

Cedar Rapids Washington rattled off a 16-2 run that spanned less than five minutes and was capped by a Sain transition dunk.

Jack McCaffery scored the final four points of the quarter on back-to-back buckets in the paint to give West High a 47-42 lead.

The Trojans led 50-44 after a pair of JuJu Manson free throws with 7:03 remaining.

It was all Warriors the rest of the way.

“It was just playing with a sense of urgency,” Decker said. “We were on the road down 12 and this is a tough place to win, people don’t come here and win that often.”

Washington scored the next seven points to take a 51-50 lead on a Noah Johnson putback.

West High regained the lead twice in the final four minutes the final time on a Manson bucket with 2:36 left.

Washington took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by senior Braden Becker with 1:48 left.

After a West High miss Becker grabbed an offensive rebound on the ensuing Warrior possession and found Sain for a 3-pointer that gave the Warriors a 59-54 lead with 48 second to play.

“Traijan Sain has been the rock and the foundation for us the past few years and Jesse Sellers and Jaden Harris those guys have continued to get better,” Becker said. “The biggest thing is they love playing together.”

West High had five of its 13 turnovers in the fourth quarter and made just 2-of-11 fourth-quarter field goal attempts.

The Trojans didn’t make a field goal over the final 2:36 of the game.

“They smelled a little blood in the water and they just really turned the heat up,” Bergman said. “We just didn’t handle it.”

Jacob Koch had 17 points to lead West High and TaeVeon Stevens had 13 for the Trojans.

McCaffery had eight and Ben Hoefer, Kareem Earl and Manson all had six.

Johnson had 14 points and six boards and Becker had nine points and eight boards for the Warriors.

“Tra held McCaffery to eight and that’s a huge thing right there, we never let him get off,” Decker said. “I thought we killed it on the offensive glass we just didn’t always convert.”

CR Washington                    11  13  18  23  –  65

West High                              14  22  11   9   –  56

CR Washington (65) – Jesse Sellers 3-11 0-0 8, Noah Johnson 7-11 0-1 14, JJ Willis 0-3 0-0 0, Jaden Harris 2-4 0-0 4, Braden Becker 4-9 0-0 9, Traijan Sain 7-16 7-9 22, Miles Lapointe 2-3 0-0 4, Bryce Brim 1-3 2-2 4, Totals 26-60 9-12 65.

West High (56) – TaeVeon Stevens 4-8 3-4 13, Ben Hoefer 2-2 0-0 6, Jacob Koch 7-14 0-0 17, Brady Simcox 0-3 0-0 0, Jack McCaffery 4-10 0-0 8, Kareem Earl 2-11 2-3 6, JuJu Manson 2-5 2-2 6, Totals 21-53 7-9 56.

3-point field goals – ICW 7-20 (Stevens 2-3, Hoefer 2-2, Koch 3-8, Simcox 0-3, McCaffery 0-3, Earl 0-1), CRW 4-15 (Sellers 2-5, Willis 0-1, Harris 0-1, Becker 1-3, Sain 1-3, Brim 0-2). Rebounds – ICW 32 (McCaffery 12), CRW 37 (Sain 9). Turnovers – ICW 13, CRW 9. Total fouls – ICW 13, CRW 11. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.