Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – It’s still November but West High already has its sights set on March.

The Trojans insist they aren’t looking ahead but they also aren’t shying away from acknowledging where they want to end the season.

Class 5A sixth-ranked West High took its first step toward what it expects to be a special season on Tuesday with a 56-50 over seventh-ranked Waukee (0-2) in its season opener at West High.

“This is really prep for March,” West High senior point guard Ava Frese said. “These are teams we hope to see at state. It’s the reason we play this game, it’s the reason we are playing Johnston at the end of the season we want to play good teams.”

The past several seasons West High has been successful.

The Trojans won 15 games last season before falling in the regional title game for the fourth consecutive season.

This season the end goal is as straight forward as possible – end the season at state.

“The last few years we’ve wanted to be successful and it’s been kind of broad and not a solid goal and this year we are open about fighting for our spot at state,” Frese said. “Every game is leading up to that.”

West High (1-0) looked like a potential state tournament team late on Tuesday.

The Trojans rallied from a three-point halftime deficit with a strong third quarter and took control of the game with a 8-0 fourth quarter run in which they went 6-for-6 from the foul like and held Waukee scoreless for nearly four minutes.

“I think they all realized that we could play better than we did in the first half,” West High coach Nate Frese said. “It’s great to have seniors and we basically rode them and Sasha (Baldwin) the whole fourth quarter. They dug deep on a couple of plays.”

West High trailed 26-23 at the half after Waukee rattled off a 10-2 run late in the second quarter.

“This is a team that goes to state four out of every five years, they have all conference, all-state players and they know what they are doing and when the opportunity arose to play them I said lets do it,” Frese said. “We aren’t going to back down from anybody. If we really want to be there in March we can’t hide from people, we can’t back down.”

West High took its first lead of the second half on a Sasha Baldwin 3-pointer with 2:40 remaining in the third quarter and never trailed again.

Waukee got as close as 48-47 on a 3-point play by Julia Van Keuren with 4:01 remaining but West High locked in defensively.

West High held the Warriors without a point until Van Keuren hit a 3-pointer with two seconds remaining.

“When we got the lead it gave us a boost of energy,” West High senior Grace Fincham said. “We are a team that plays a lot better when we have energy.”

Baldwin had 13 of her game-high 18 points in the second half and led four West High players in double figures.

Fincham had 15 points and nine rebounds and Frese added 11 points for the Trojans including a key 3-pointer with 5:15 remaining that pushed the lead to 48-44.

“At the beginning of the game we were rebounding and once we got down we kind of let that go,” Frese said. “In the second half we really brought our energy up on the defensive end and were getting defensive boards and pushing on the break.”

Senior Abby Neumiller had 10 points and seven rebounds for West High.

“We have a very close team this year, the seven of us have been playing together for a long time and this is a big season for us,” Fincham said. “We are want to get to state and we want to win state and we are going to do everything we can.”

Waukee          9  17  11  13  –  50

West High      7  16  16  17  –  56

Waukee (50) – Natalie Sitzman 1-3 2-4 4, Suzy Scott 1-7 1-2 3, Samantha Reis 4-9 2-4 11, Taryne Werstein 1-1 0-0 3, Olivia Baker 2-6 1-2 5, Julia Van Keuren 5-11 3-3 15, Maryn Szalo 4-13 0-0 9, Totals 18-50 9-15 50.

West High (56) – Ava Frese 2-4 6-6 11, Savannah Mathias 0-1 0-0 0, Kate Van Waning 0-3 0-0 0, Abby Neumiller 4-1 1-1 10, Josephine Austen 0-2 0-0 0, Grace Fincham 7-16 0-2 15, Lauryn Hynek 0-0 2-2 2, Sasha Baldwin 5-16 4-4 18, Totals 18-53 13-15 56.

3-point field goals – WAU 5-19 (Sitzman 0-1, Scott 0-2, Reis 1-2, Werstein 1-1, Baker 0-3, Van Keuren 2-3, Szalo 1-6), ICW 7-24 (Frese 1-1, Mathias 0-1, Van Waning 0-1, Neumiller 1-4, Austen 0-1, Fincham 1-4, Baldwin 4-12). Rebounds – WAU 34 (Van Keuren 9), ICW 36 (Fincham 9). Turnovers – WAU 16, ICW 15. Total fouls – WAU 14, ICW 15. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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