Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – The first City High and West High rivalry game for Jason Kern was far from a basketball masterpiece.

The first-year West High coach couldn’t care any less.

West High saw a 14-point second-half lead shrink to one but held on for a 53-51 win over City High in a cross-town thriller on Friday at City High.

“I told our guys in the locker room, a win is a win,” Kern said. “Ugly or whatever we needed this one.”

West High (4-3) never trailed on Friday but couldn’t put away City High until the final seconds.

Corey Davis scored 15 points including a key transition layup late as West High extended its winning streak over City High to six.

“It meant a lot,” Davis said. “To win in a tough environment is just amazing.”

This was a grind from the outset.

The teams combined for 41 fouls, 50 free throw attempts and 35 percent field goal shooting.

It was West High that managed to make the big plays when it needed.

“It’s kind of a college feel, it’s a big-time environment, these teams get up for this game,” Kern said. “It doesn’t matter how good the teams are it’s always going to be a dog fight so our kids bought in, we led to wire-to-wire and we tried to give it away at the end but we closed it out so I’m proud of these guys.”

West High jumped to a 19-8 lead after the opening quarter and led 30-18 at the half.

City High (1-5) came charging back.

The Little Hawks closed the third quarter with a 9-0 run that featured six points from sophomore guard Coden Kurtz and cut the lead to 40-35.

City High got as close as one on two occasions in the final 4:07 but could never pull even.

“They changed up their game plan a little bit so kudos to them and coach McTaggart so we had to make some adjustments,” Kern said. “I’m proud of the way our guys handled it.”

Owen Harms gave West High a 51-48 lead with a bucket in the paint with 1:23 remaining.

A minute later Davis scored in transition after a City High turnover to give the Trojans a five-point lead with 24 seconds remaining.

“We’ve got so many new guys, we lost six guys that were starters or contributors before the first practice and I told them you don’t know when your opportunity is going to come,” Kern said. “Corey Davis didn’t play the first two games of the year and he’s been a spark plug, he waited his opportunity and he didn’t pout he waited and was ready to go when it was his turn and tonight h led us in scoring.”

Eight players scored for West High led by Davis with 15.

Seniors Ethan Headings and Henry Elser each had eight points while Harms had six and Ahmet Toz had five.

“The diversity on offense is important,” Davis said. “You can’t always have guards scoring and you can’t always have posts scoring so that diversity helps a lot in these games.”

Christopher Watkins had 17 points and nine rebounds to lead City High while Kurtz had 13 points for the Little Hawks.

West High                  19  11  10  13  – 53

City High                    8   10  17  16  – 51

West High (53) – Ethan Headings 3-7 0-0 8, Corey Davis 5-10 3-4 15, Henry Elser 1-6 5-6 8, Neil James 0-0 4-6 4, Ahmet Toz 2-4 0-0 5, Jack Jensen-Fitzpatrick 1-7 0-0 3, Owen Harms 2-7 2-6 6, Lowden Van Daele 2-3 0-1 4, Totals 16-44 24-23 53.

City High (51) – Jack Lampe 1-7 2-6 4, Jack Rogers 0-2 0-0 0, Ja’Vion Robinson 1-6 2-2 4, Coden Kurtz 4-10 2-3 13, Christopher Watkins 6-12 4-6 17, Kevion Estremera 2-5 2-6 6, Davion Hopkins 2-5 3-4 7, Totals 16-47 15-27 51.

3-point field goal – ICH 4-19 (Lampe 0-3, Rogers 0-2, Robinson 0-3, Kurtz 3-8, Watkins 1-2, Hopkins 0-1), ICW 7-23 (Headings 2-3, Davis 2-5, Elser 1-4, Toz 1-2, Jensen-Fitzpatrick 1-7, Harms 0-2). Rebounds – ICH 41 (Watkins 10), ICW 30 (James 7). Turnovers – ICH 20, ICW 18. Total fouls – ICH 21, ICW 20. Fouled out – ICH (Watkins), ICW (Headings). Technical fouls – None.

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