Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – In a rivalry game bragging rights are always up for grabs.

Greg Ford and his West High teammates knew there was something else at stake Friday when the Trojans hosted cross-town rival Liberty High.

“We knew we had to be the king of the City,” Ford explained.

West High completed a perfect 4-0 regular season against Iowa City foes on Friday with a 73-48 win over Liberty High in a Mississippi Valley Conference Mississippi Division tilt in Iowa City.

Ford had 16 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists and Neil James had 18 points and eight boards as West High (9-6) won for the fourth time in its past five games.

West High completed a season sweep of rival City High last Friday and did the same on Friday with its win over Liberty High.

The Trojans won its four games over cross-town rivals by an average of nearly 12 points per game.

“West is a good program, years before we’d win these games and we wanted to keep it going,” Ford said. “We didn’t let the game get too big, we kept our heads and put an entire 32 minutes together and got a win.”

West High never trailed on Friday, jumping to a 15-9 lead after the opening quarter and building a 29-18 halftime advantage.

The Trojans shot 54 percent from the floor and held a 40-14 rebounding edge while limiting Liberty High to 34 percent shooting.

“I was super proud of our guys staying locked in for 32 minutes,” West High coach Jason Kern said. “We had a little slippage with about a minute left in the second quarter and we always talking about finishing strong the last four minutes of the half and first four minutes of the third and we came out strong after halftime and just took off from there.”

James entered averaging 4.2 points per game but gave the Trojans an offensive lift on Friday.

The 6-foot-1 junior forward made 9-of-10 field goals on Friday on his way to an 18-point outburst.

“We were moving the ball,” James said. “The ball just kept moving and moving and that separated their defense and opened up our scorers.”

James had 12 points in the first half as West High built its early lead, converting on several point-blank opportunities at the rim.

“We knew defensively what they were going to do with their zone and our two bigs that were in there at the elbow were going to be open with the stuff we were going to run,” Kern said. “We knew he was going to have an opportunity and we told Neil we all believe in him and he just had to believe in himself and he had that confidence.”

James and Ford led a balanced and efficient West High offense.

Ethan Headings had 11 points and Henry Elser, Jack Jensen-Fitzpatrick and Ahmet Toz all had eight points for the Trojans.

“The good thing about our team is you can’t hone in on one guy,” Kern said. “We don’t just have that dude that is going to get us 20, we have multiple guys that could go for 20 on a night and it’s a good thing that’s hard to prepare for.

Chase Goodheart had 24 points and Jacob Stapleton added 10 points for Liberty High (5-10).

Liberty High               9    9  15  15  –  48

West High                  15  14  18  26  –  73

Liberty High (48) – Asher Kahn 0-4 0-0 0, Brooks Andersen 4-7 4-4 12, Peyton Brooks 0-1 0-0 0, Cale Baldwin 0-0 1-2 1, Rylen Schweitzer 0-3 0-0 0, Chase Goodheart 8-17 6-6 24, Braden Franklin 0-0 1-2 1, Victor Nakihinga 0-0 0-2 0, Jacob Stapleton 2-9 5-8 10, Totals 14-41 17-24 48.

West High (73) – Ethan Headings 4-9 3-3 11, Corey Davis 0-2 0-0 0, Henry Elser 3-5 0-0 8, Neil James 9-10 0-0 18, Greg Ford 6-11 2-2 16, Ahmet Toz 4-7 0-0 8, Jack Jensen-Fitzpatrick 2-7 2-2 8, KingSton Swayzer 0-3 0-0 0, Lowden Van Daele 2-2 0-0 4, Totals 30-56 7-7 73.

3-point field goal – ICL 3-18 (Kahn 0-2, Brooks 0-1, Schweitzer 0-2, Goodheart 2-8, Stapleton 1-5), ICW 6-22 (Headings 0-3, Davis 0-2, Elser 2-3, Ford 2-3, Toz 0-1, Jensen-Fitzpatrick 2-7, Swayzer 0-3). Rebounds – ICL 14 (Baldwin 4), ICW 40 (Ford 12). Turnovers – ICL 11, ICW 18. Total fouls – ICL 12, ICW 16. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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