Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR RAPIDS – With a rotation shortened by injury, foul trouble mounting and momentum building on the opposing side West High coach Steve Bergman had the feeling overtime would not be an advantageous situation for his team in Tuesday’s Substate 3 title game.

Bergman’s instincts proved to be accurate.

Bettendorf limited West High to one point in the four-minute overtime session, securing its first trip to the state tournament since 2017 with a 55-52 win over the Trojans in a Class 4A Substate final at Alliant Energy Powerhouse in Cedar Rapids.

“We really didn’t want it to go to overtime with all the foul trouble,” Bergman said. “Our depth is not good right now and it caught up to us especially in overtime.”

Seventh-ranked West High (19-4) nearly got the job done in regulation.

The Trojans led 48-42 with 3:20 remaining after back-to-back baskets by Jack Wallace and had a 49-44 lead with under two and a half minutes remaining.

Bettendorf (17-6) closed regulation on a 7-2 run, pulling even on a driving basket by senior Caden Wilkins with 16 seconds to play.

The career scoring leader at Bettendorf, Wilkins finishing with a team-high 15 points to lead three Bulldogs in double figures.

Bettendorf (17-6) will face Cedar Falls (20-3) in a Class 4A state quarterfinal on Wednesday at 3:45 p.m. at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Wilkins said. “This is something that I’ve wanted my whole career and something that all the coaches wanted. We set a goal at the start of the year to be MAC champs and go to state and so far we’ve achieved both so we want to keep it rolling.”

West High still had a shot to end the game in regulation.

Junior Jack McCaffery’s contested 17-foot jumper shot from the top of the key rattled around and out as time expired.

“When you get this late in the season not only do you have to be good but you have to have some good luck too,” Bettendorf coach Curtis Clark said. “Obviously (McCaffery) is a good player and he’s capable of making that shot. That thing was halfway down.”

Neither team made a field goal in overtime as the two teams combined to miss all nine attempts.

Bettendorf junior Ben Kerkhoff accounted for all the Bulldogs’ overtime scoring with four free throws all in the final 67 seconds.

“We told them we are never dead,” Curtis Clark said. “In that game a lot of teams would have laid down, we had a lot of things going against us and I thought late game, Tre’Von Coney came up and made big plays, Caden Wilkins did and the fourth quarter we rebounded a lot better and we challenged them going into the fourth quarter.

The big blow for West High came with 1:46 remaining in overtime when McCaffery was whistled for his fifth foul chasing a loose ball on the baseline with the game tied at 51.

“It was huge being able to foul out McCaffery,” Wilkins said. “He’s a great player and he was making big shots for them but with him out of the game we were able to play solid from there.”

After Kerhoff gave Bettendorf the lead with two free throws with 1:17 remaining West High had several opportunities to tie or take the lead.

Kareem Earl made 1-of-2 free throws with 57 seconds remaining to cut the lead to 53-52 but the Trojans missed their final two field goal attempts.

“We had a great year and like all teams we have flaws and one of ours was just executing some times,” Berman said. “It kind of caught up to us at the wrong time.”

McCaffery had a game-high 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead West High while Earl had 13 points.

Taeveon Stevens had nine points and five rebounds for West High.

Tre’Von Coney had 11 points including the game-tying 3-pointer with 1:10 remaining in regulation and Asher Wade had 11 points and 10 rebounds for Bettendorf.

Bettendorf                 15  9   11  16  4  –  55

West High                  9  16  15  11  1  –  52                        

Bettendorf (55) – Tre’Von Coney 4-9 1-4 11, Ben Kerkhoff 1-9 4-4 7, Cole Odefey 1-5 3-3 5, Caden Wilkins 5-14 2-3 15, Amari Washington 1-4 4-4 6, Asher Wade 5-7 1-3 11, Totals 17-48 15-21 55.

West High (52) – TaeVeon Stevens 3-12 1-2 9, Canaan Barnes 2-4 0-0 4, Jacob Koch 1-7 1-4 3, Jack McCaffery 8-14 1-2 17, Kareem Earl 5-9 3-4 13, Jack Wallace 2-2 0-0 4, Julian Manson 1-2 0-0 2, Totals 22-50 6-12 52.

3-point field goals – BET 6-15 (Coney 2-2, Kerkhoff 1-7, Odefey 0-2, Wilkins 3-4), ICW 2-16 (Stevens 2-6, Barnes 0-2, Koch 0-4, McCaffery 0-2, Earl 0-2). Rebounds – BET 33 (Wade 10), ICW 32 (McCaffery 9). Turnovers – BET 12, ICW 9. Total fouls – BET 14, ICW 19. Fouled out – ICW (McCaffery). Technical fouls – None.

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