Pat Harty

Your Prep Sports 

IOWA CITY – There are lots of benefits to playing alongside Even Brauns and nobody knows that better than his teammate Ben Vander Leest.

With the 6-foot-9 Brauns often drawing double and triple teams that leaves plenty of room for his teammates to operate, and Vander Leest took advantage of that circumstance against City High on Friday.

The 6-foot-3 Vander Leest scored 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field as Class 4A No. 1 West High cruised to a 61-28 victory at home. He also made two of West High six 3-point baskets.

Brauns, as usual, did his part by scoring 17 points and blocking at least four shots. Brauns made his first six shots from the field.

“The attention is on him a lot of the time, so I always have to be ready to shoot on the outside, ready to drive and ready to do whatever I need to help our team and help the offense,” Vander Leest said.

West High led 34-15 at halftime and 54-19 after three quarters.

The entire fourth quarter was played with a continuous, which goes into effect when one team leads the other by at least 35 points in the second half.

“That’s always real fun, especially against them,” Vander Leest said of the continuous clock. “This is always a real fun game. The atmosphere is always great. And it’s fun to come out with the big win.”

The Little Hawke struggled to get many open looks against West High suffocating defensive pressure.

“We’ve been really focusing on defense all year,” Vander Leest said. “That’s something we really pride ourselves.

“So that’s really where we want to win our games. And it’s great when the offense comes with. But we feel like if we can hold teams to a low score, we feel that we have a good chance to win.”

West High is also getting healthier at the right time as junior guard Marcus Morgan played on Friday for the first time in six weeks after being out with a lesion on his tibia.

Morgan came off the bench and scored five points.

“So they basically put him on crutches for two weeks and then all he could do was walk for the next four,” said West High coach Steve Bergman. “This week he started running. He practiced for 15 minutes.

“And then yesterday was the first day he did anything live.”

City High      8   7    4   9  –  28

West High   15  19  20 11 –  61

City High (28) – Keshawn Christian 3-8 0-0 7, Kolby Kucera 1-3 0-0 2, Byron Benton 2-6 1-2 5, Jamari Newson 0-5 0-0 0, Raph Hamilton 0-3 2-2 2, Andre Miller 1-3 0-0 3, Bram Sueppel 1-2 0-0 2, Antrell Foster 0-1 0-0 0, Traivon Hodges 0-3 0-0 0, Cedric Dunnwald 0-1 1-2 1, Samir Abdalla 1-2 0-0 2, Joseph Polfliet 0-0 0-0 0, Isaac Rohret 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 8-34 3-4 28.

West High (61) – Even Brauns 8-11 1-2 17, Tate Crane 2-3 2-2 6, Nicholas Pepin 2-9 1-2 6, Joey Goodman 2-3 0-0 5, Ben Vander Leest 5-7 1-1 13, Marcus Morgan 2-3 0-0 5, Christian Barnes 1-1 0-0 2, Andrew Tauchen 0-1 0-0 0, Charlie Morleand 0-0 0-0 0, Mikey Crutcher 1-2 2-2 5, Muhammad Simpson 0-3 0-0 0, Nikolaa Zamora 0-0 0-0 0, Zachary Anderson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-44 7-11 68.

3-point goals – City High 2 (Christian, Miller); West High 6 Vander Leest 2, Pepin, Goodman. Morgan, Crutcher. Fouls – City High 14, West High 11.

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