Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Clear Creek Amana sparkled early and surged late in its matchup with Liberty High on Saturday afternoon.

In between there were plenty of tense moments for the Clippers but the end result was another win.

Class 4A second-ranked Clear Creek Amana raced to a 14-0 lead less than three minutes into the game and opened the fourth quarter with a 14-5 run hold off inspired Liberty High 50-45 in a non-conference matchup in Tiffin.

“The first thing I told our girls in the locker room is we made enough plays to win the game,” Clear Creek Amana coach PJ Sweeney said. “We got some stops, we had some good possessions offensively and we made the plays when it counted.”

Sophomore Averie Lower had a game-high 18 points and Ava Locklear had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds as Clear Creek Amana notched its second consecutive win over a 5A opponent.

Liberty High (0-3) outscored Clear Creek Amana 37-22 between the runs to open the game and to begin the fourth quarter but those two surges were enough to push the Clippers to 3-0 on the season.

“Things weren’t going our way in the second and third quarter but when push comes to shove in the last four minutes of the fourth quarter we made enough plays,” Sweeney said. “That’s definitely the mark of a good team.”

Led by Lower the Clippers came out firing.

Lower had three 3-pointers during the 14-0 run to open the game, her third triple put the Clippers up 14-0 with 5:17 remaining in the opening quarter.

“At the very beginning of the game we were doing a really good job of entering the ball into the post,” Lower said. “The more we get the ball to our posts the more ball movement we have.”

Fresh off a 66-58 loss to Cedar Rapids Washington less than 24 hours earlier, Liberty High battled back.

The Lightning cut the lead to 22-15 with a 7-0 run to end the first quarter and trailed just 27-24 after a 6-1 surge to end the second quarter.

“I saw them last night and I felt pretty good but it was a totally different team in a 24-hour span,” Sweeney said. “Give them a lot of credit, they played really hard.”

Liberty High took its first lead of the game on a Kennedy Goodheart 3-pointer with 3:42 remaining in the third quarter and led 37-36 after three quarters when Goodheart hit another triple with 53 seconds left in the quarter.

“They’ve got some good players, they are young and a little inexperienced but they have some players that can really play,” Sweeney said. “They challenged us and the second and third quarters we were playing our heels a little bit.”

Clear Creek Amana came up big with the game on the line.

After Liberty High pulled even at 40-40 on a conventional 3-point by Madeline Casey with 5:33 remaining the Clippers scored 10 of the next 12 points.

Locklear started the run with a free throw and Bliss Beck had a put back to push the margin to 43-40.

After a pair of Casey free throws cut the lead to one Lower hit a 3-pointer from the left wing out of a timeout, her fifth of the game, to give CCA a 46-43 lead.

“I think the defense was just a little confused and Kennedy saw me,” Lower said. “It was a perfect opportunity to get us going.”

A Locklear bucket and a pair of Lower free throws in the final 10 seconds paired with some late defensive stops was enough for Clear Creek Amana to escape with the win.

Clear Creek Amana held Liberty High to just three points in the final 2:52, coming on an Ava Casey 3-pointer with two seconds left.

“We were just trying to stick with what we’ve been doing,” Locklear said. “They were pressing us, trying to speed us up and we just had to stick to what we know and locking in on defense.”

Kennedy Stratton had nine points and Beck had five points and 12 rebounds for Clear Creek Amana.

The Clippers shot 35 percent from the field and were 7-of-14 from the free throw line.

“There are things we have to work on,” Sweeney said. “When you are up by double digits you can’t relax and we’ve just got to be able to learn to do that. Hopefully we can learn from this and get better.”

Goodheart led Liberty High with 12 points and nine rebounds while Madeline Casey had 10 points and Natalie Ramsey had nine points.

Liberty High                         15  9  13  8  –  45

Clear Creek Amana              22  5   9  14 –  50

Liberty High (45) – Ava Casey 1-5 0-0 3, Bella Tafolla 1-6 2-2 5, Kennedy Goodheart 4-14 1-2 12, Ava Tague 2-2 0-0 5, Natalie Ramsey 4-8 0-1 9, Madeline Casey 3-12 3-3 10, Sydney Van Heukelom 0-1 1-2 1, Totals 15-48 7-10 45.

Clear Creek Amana (50) – Kiera Rogers 0-2 0-0 0, Averie Lower 5-9 3-4 18, Sam Schrage 1-7 0-0 3, Lena Evans 0-3 0-0 0, Kennedy Stratton 4-9 0-0 9, Bliss Beck 2-6 1-6 5, Ava Locklear 6-15 3-4 15, Totals 18-51 7-14 50.

3-point field goals – ICL 8-28 (A. Casey 1-4, Tafolla 1-3, Goodheart 3-11, Tague 1-1, Ramsey 1-2, Casey 1-7), CCA 7-21 (Lower 5-9, Schrage 1-5, Evans 0-3, Stratton 1-4). Rebounds – ICL 33 (Goodheart 9), CCA 33 (Beck 12). Turnovers – ICL 16, CCA 16. Total fouls – ICL 14, CCA 8. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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