Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Three seasons ago Clear Creek Amana secured its first ever state tournament berth with a stunning road upset of second-ranked Marion in the shocker of the 2020 postseason.

Clear Creek Amana is headed back to state and this time it came as no surprise.

Seventh-ranked Clear Creek Amana (18-4) dominated No. 10 North Scott from the outset earning its second state tournament trip in four seasons with a 61-46 win in the Class 4A, Region 7 title game on Tuesday in Tiffin.

“That’s our goal going into every season is going to Des Moines and I think we’ve got the program to the height where we are disappointed if we don’t get there,” Clear Creek Amana coach PJ Sweeney said. “We’ve made it two of the last four years, we’ve been in the regional final three of the last four years so that’s our expectation is to get to state.”

Ava Locklear led three Clear Creek Amana players in double figures with a game-high 17 points and the Clippers shot 56 percent from the field to secure a spot at the 4A state tournament year after falling in the regional final.

“I think we’ve been so close every year and it’s kind of heartbreaking when you get that far and you lose,” Locklear said. “This year we knew we wanted to get here, and we knew the work it was going to take and we finally got it this year.”

The inaugural regional final win for the Clippers over Marion in 2020 came with the elation of a stunning upset.

Tuesday’s win felt the arrival of a program on the rise.

Clear Creek Amana trailed only once at 2-0 and led 13-6 after one quarter and had a 28-16 lead at the break.

North Scott (13-10) never got the lead to single digits as the perennial power Lancers had their season end with a loss at Clear Creek Amana for the second year in a row.

Clear Creek Amana stopped a string of three consecutive state tournament appearances for North Scott with a 46-39 win in the regional semifinals last season.

“Last year it was heartbreaking to be so close and not make it so we knew we had to come in and fight,” Clear Creek Amana junior Kaylee Stratton said. “We knew that we beat them last year and they weren’t going to forget that and we knew it was going to be a battle but it’s an insane feeling to get.”

Clear Creek Amana will face second-ranked North Polk (21-2) in a Class 4A quarterfinal on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“A few years ago when we went it was more just enjoying the experience,” Sweeney said. “Now we want to win some games and take care of business and seeing if we can win the dang thing.”

Clear Creek Amana used a defensive change to get things rolling on Tuesday.

Traditionally a man-to-man defensive team, the Clippers put in a 2-3 zone in preparation to defend the North Scott post tandem of Lauren Golinghorst and Makayla Farnum.

“We watched them on film and I came in Sunday and said to my assistant Alex (Schultejans) ‘am I crazy to think we should go 2-3 zone’? and he said. ‘I was thinking the same thing’,” Sweeney said. “We worked on it for about 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon, we came in yesterday and worked on it for about 45 minutes and it was very effective tonight.”

The zone defense paid dividends early as Clear Creek Amana limited the Lancers to 3-of-13 shooting in the opening quarter while building an early 13-6 lead.

“We have never played 2-3 zone but we knew they had some bigs and that’s who we needed to stop,” Stratton said. “When teams play zone against us it’s hard to get the ball to our bigs so we thought we’d try it out and we have the athletes to play about any defense we need.”

While North Scott struggled against the Clipper zone Locklear got the Clippers off to a strong start offensively.

The junior post made all four of her first-quarter field goal attempts and had eight of her game-high 17 points in the first quarter.

“We’ve always talked about going inside early because it can create the outside shots,” Locklear said. “We’ve always talked about that but we focused on that this week and trying to get their bigs in foul trouble and it really helped us get our outside shooters open.”

North Scott got as close as 18-14 in the second quarter but Clear Creek Amana closed the half on a 10-2 run fueled by back-to-back 3-pointers by senior Olivia Miller and Stratton.

A tradition 3-point play by Stratton capped a 5-0 burst to start the third quarter and gave Clear Creek Amana a 33-16 lead.

Stratton finished with 15 points while freshman Averie Lower had 14.

“She has just come on so much this year,” Sweeney said of Stratton. “It’s incredible the growth from November to what you see now. It’s just night and day difference.”

Miller added seven points for Clear Creek Amana which shot 57 percent from the floor in the second half.

“This is amazing,” Miller said. “We all thought that had the team to get there if we had the mindset. Our team chemistry this year is so good, we all get along so we knew we could do it.”

Golinghorst had and Bailey Boddicker each had 11 points for North Scott as the Lancers were limited to 33 percent shooting.

North Scott                              6  10  11  19  –  46

Clear Creek Amana              13  15  16  17  –  61

North Scott (46) – Bailey Boddicker 4-9 2-3 11, Cora O’Neill 2-10 0-0 5, Lexi Ward 2-3 0-0 4, Sydney Skarich 3-4 0-0 6, Kendall Knisley 0-1 0-0 0, Lauren Golinghorst 4-16 2-4 11, Makayla Farnum 3-12 1-2 9, Totals 18-55 5-9 46.

Clear Creek Amana (61) – Kaylee Stratton 4-10 6-8 15, Averie Lower 5-9 0-0 14, Sam Schrage 2-3 0-0 4, Olivia Miller 2-4 2-2 7, Kennedy Stratton 1-1 0-0 2, Bliss Beck 1-2 0-0 2, Ava Locklear 5-7 7-11 17, Totals 20-36 15-21 61.

3-point field goals – CCA 6-14 (Kay. Stratton 1-3, Lower 4-8, Miller 1-3), NS 5-25 (Boddicker 1-5, O’Neill 1-9, Ward 0-1, Golinghorst 1-3, Farnum 2-7). Rebounds – CCA 29 (Locklear 9), NS 31 (Golinghorst, Skarich 7). Turnovers – CCA 17, NS 16. Total fouls – CCA 10, NS 18. Fouled out – NS (Boddicker). Technical fouls – None.

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