Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Following a five-point loss at City High last month West High coach Nate Frese challenged his team to approach the final six games of the regular season as if it were a postseason game.

“After the City loss we told them every game is win or go home,” Frese said. “That’s how you have to approach all of these six games to get your mind ready for the playoffs.”

West High rattled off three wins with that mindset before a 41-40 loss to Class 5A No. 12 Cedar Falls halted that streak on Friday night.

That’s the bad news for eighth-ranked West High which dropped to 13-7 on the season and was dealt a season sweep by the Tigers.

The good news for West High is the postseason is still a few weeks away.

“We have to treat every one of these games like a playoff game and I felt like we did that for three games,” Frese said. “Tonight, I felt like we back stepped a little bit.”

Cedar Falls (14-5) scored the final six points of the game after West High took its only lead at 37-35, holding the Trojans scoreless for the final 3:31.

The 40 points matched the second lowest scoring output of the season for West High.

The lowest scoring effort of the season for West High was 35, in a nine-point loss at Cedar Falls on December 13.

“I thought our girls competed,” Frese said. “They always play hard and they are a team that really, really wants it they just don’t know how to adjust to teams that play like that, that are very physical.”

Cedar Falls got a game-high 21 points and 10 rebounds from senior Karis Finley and limited West High to 36 percent shooting in the win.

The Tigers led 10-3 after the opening quarter, holding West High without a point for the final 4:36 of the first quarter.

West High made just one of 10 first-quarter field goal attempts.

“When we did drive they over-helped and we didn’t recognize that in time and we had a couple of turnovers and empty possessions and when we did get it in there we were really skittish so we wind up with three points in the quarter,” Frese said. “It’s really hard to win when you have three points in a quarter.”

Despite shooting 19 percent from the floor in the first half and going 2-of-11 from 3-point range West High trailed just 15-11 at halftime.

The Trojans held Cedar Falls scoreless for more than six minutes in the second quarter and limited the Tigers to 27 percent shooting.

“What we talked about at half was for all of our offensive woes we still held them to 15 points,” Frese said “That’s what we always preach is defense is going to keep you in games and that was the truth and we needed just to loosen up a bit on the offensive end.”

West High trailed 33-32 after the third quarter and took its first lead of the game at 37-35 on a Sasha Baldwin driving layup with 4:32 remaining.

The Trojans led 40-35 after a Baldwin 3-pointer with 3:31 left in the game but the Tigers scored the final six points.

Cedar Falls took the lead on a Finley putback with 1:46 remaining.

West High had a shot to win on its final possession but a deep 3-pointer by Grace Fincham was off the mark.

“They play really hard defense, they hold teams to low points totals,” Frese said. “They run the clock down a little on offense and credit to them, they run their stuff really well.”

Cedar Falls                10  5  18  8  –  41

West High                    3  8  21  8  –  40

Cedar Falls (41) – Gabie Hanks 1-10 4-6 7, Sophie Stanic 0-2 0-2 0, Jordann Oakland 1-4 0-0 2, Karis Finley 9-17 0-0 21, Emma Jacobs 1-4 0-0 3, Grace Hannam 4-7 0-0 8, Totals 16-44 4-8 41.

West High (40) – Ava Frese 1-4 1-2 4, Kate Van Waning 4-8 0-0 9, Abby Neumiller 3-6 0-0 8, Elle Barnett 2-2 0-0 5, Grace Fincham 1-9 1-1 3, Lauryn Hynek 0-0 0-2 0, Sasha Baldwin 3-10 3-5 11, Totals 14-39 5-10 40.

3-point field goals – Cedar Falls 5-20 (Hanks 1-5, Oakland 0-3, Finley 3-8, Jacobs 1-4), West High 7-20 (Frese 1-2, Van Waning 1-3, Neumiller 2-5, Barnett 1-1, Fincham 0-3, Baldwin 2-6). Rebounds – Cedar Falls 28 (Finley 10), West High 29 (Fincham 7). Total fouls – Cedar Falls 6, West High 9. Turnovers – Cedar Falls 5, West High 10. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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