Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Make no mistake everyone in green and gold, or pink on this night, had a hand in West High’s fourth consecutive win on Friday night.

Nine different Trojans scored points as West High put up a season-high in points in a 79-56 win over Cedar Rapids Prairie in a Mississippi Valley Conference contest in Iowa City.

However it was the Trojans’ two stars, Sasha Baldwin and Grace Fincham that had their finger prints all over the best offensive game of the season for West High.

Fincham and Baldwin combined for 54 points as West High shot 60 percent from the field while improving to 10-3 on the season with its fourth consecutive win.

“Hitting shots definitely helps but I feel like it’s just more about trusting each other,” Baldwin said. “That trust we have in each other offensively is the biggest thing for us.”

Fincham had a game-high 31 points, all in the first three quarters, and Baldwin poured in 23 as West High remained unbeaten at 4-0 after the holiday break.

West High had a season-best 14 3-pointers on Friday, five each from Fincham and Baldwin as the Trojans made double-digit 3-pointers for the third time in their current four-game winning streak.

“We are a good shooting team and we shot the 3-ball well tonight but we’ve worked a lot on cutting,” Fincham said. “I thought we set really good screens, cut really hard and got looks at the basket and when we didn’t get those shots at the basket we had good kick outs.”

West High needed its best offensive night of the season to pull away from Cedar Rapids Prairie (6-7) who got 23 points each from junior KeaOnna Worley and senior Brynlie Hadenfeldt.

Hadenfeldt and Worley combined for 30 of the Hawks’ 32 first-half points as Prairie cut an eight-point West High lead to 34-32 at the half.

Fincham, Baldwin and the Trojans responded over the final two quarters.

“We came out of halftime with a game plan of the things we needed to do better,” Baldwin said. “We had a lot of confidence coming out of halftime and we knew what we had to do to finish the game.”

Fincham had 13 of her game-high 31 points in the third quarter, including three 3-pointers on three attempts in the opening three minutes of the half as West High jumped to a 45-37 lead.

West High shot 65 percent and had eight different players score after halftime.

“Grace got on a heater with the 3s in the third quarter and what that does to the opponent is they are focused on her and all credit to Prairie I thought they had a great game plan but when we picked that game plan apart they had to go to plan B,” West High coach Nate Frese said. “When you can make a team go to that plan B it makes it tough on them.”

Cedar Rapids Prairie switched between man-to-man and a 2-3 zone defense but whatever the Hawks tried defensively Fincham and West High had an answer.

“Grace was a buster tonight, she busted up a lot of stuff they tried to do tonight,” Frese said. “She attacked in the paint, she got whatever she wanted from the outside, she was feeling it and she wanted to shoot those shots.”

West High outscored Prairie 45-24 in the second half as Baldwin had 13 of her 23 in the second half.

Abby Neumiller had five of her six points in the second half and was one of five Trojans to hit a second-half 3-pointer.

“We had really good ball movement,” Fincham said. “They shifted their defense a lot and we adapted really well to that. We worked through that and that was really good and we had some really good cuts.”

CR Prairie                 10  22  15   9   –  56

West High                  15  19  26  19  –  79

Cedar Rapids Prairie (56) – KeaOnna Worley 9-16 2-3 23, Brynlie Hadenfeldt 9-21 4-4 23, Emily Larsen 1-10 0-0 3, Kennady Johnson 0-2 0-0 0, Piper Johnson 1-1 0-0 2, Reece Goerdt 1-1 0-0 3, Kyle Wachtl 1-2 0-0 2, Totals 22-53 6-7 56.

West High (79) – Ava Frese 1-2 0-0 2, Savanah Mathias 1-1 3-4 5, Kate Van Waning 1-1 1-1 3, Abby Neumiller 2-6 1-2 6, Josephine Austen 1-4 0-0 3, Grace Fincham 12-17 2-3 31, Taleen Rahhal 0-1 0-0 0, Sasha Baldwin 7-11 4-4 23, Kate Havel 1-1 0-0 3, Ellie DeWaard 1-1 0-0 3, Totals 27-45 11-14 79.

3-point field goal – CRP 6-24 (Worley 3-8, Hadenfeldt 1-6, Larsen 1-7, Johnson 0-2, Goerdt 1-1), ICW 14-29 (Neumiller 1-5, Austen 1-3, Fincham 5-9, Rahhal 0-1, Baldwin 5-9, Havel 1-1, DeWaard 1-1). Rebounds – CRP 23 (Hadenfeldt 6), ICW 28 (Neumiller 8). Turnovers – CRP 4, ICW 7. Total fouls – CRP 11, ICW 7. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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