Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – In its drive to its first state tournament trip since 2021 West High had its offense humming.

The Trojans averaged better than 64 points while going 4-1 down the stretch and scored 65 per game in a pair of regional wins.

In its 5A quarterfinal on Monday West High couldn’t get its offense out of neutral.

Third-ranked Waukee Northwest used its full-court pressure defense to limit West High to just five first-half field goals while building a 37-15 halftime leads on its way to a 80-49 win at Casey’s Center in Des Moines.

“It’s hard, it’s not how we wanted it to go but we battled as hard as we could obviously that press was hard for us to get through,” West High senior Grace Fincham said. “We are going to stick with each other the whole time.”

Waukee Northwest (18-5) will face second-ranked West Des Moines Dowling (21-3) in the 5A semifinals on Thursday at 11:45 a.m. while West High closed the season 17-8.

West High struggled offensively but make no mistake, Waukee Northwest was a big reason for the West High offense stalling early on Monday.

The Wolves full-court pressure defense turned nine first-half turnovers into 15 points as Waukee Northwest overcame its own early shooting struggles.

Waukee Northwest was just 5-of-18 from the floor in the first quarter but led 16-8 thanks in large part to its defense creating easy transition opportunities.

“That was the plan was to come out and full court press right off the bat, sometime we kind of lay back and let the girls get warmed up,” Waukee Northwest coach Samuel Powell said. “Today there was no warm up, we were going straight at it.”

The Wolves opened the second quarter on a 15-4 run, much of which came with West High leading scorer and rebounder Grace Fincham on the bench with four fouls.

Fincham picked up three fouls in the first quarter and went to the bench for the remainder of the half after recording her fourth foul with 6:03 remaining in the second quarter.

“By far that was the worse case scenario to start,” Fincham said. “The foul trouble was hard and the energy was a little off when that happened.”

With Fincham on the bench West High struggled to find on offensive rhythm and shot just 31 percent from the floor (5-of-16) in the opening half.

Waukee Northwest held a 24-11 rebounding edge in the opening half that included 12 offensive rebounds that resulted in 10 second chance points.

“We were obviously expecting them to press but we let that get to us early in the game and they stayed in it,” West High senior Van Waning said. “We had a lot of forced turnovers and they got a lot of free layups and that really affected how we wanted to start the game.”

Waukee Northwest scored 31 points off 20 West High turnovers in the game.

Fincham scored 10 of her team-high 13 points in the second half for West High and finished with eight rebounds and four assists.

Sophomore Sadie McCann led three players in double figures for Waukee Northwest with 18 points while senior Vana Bilic had 15 points and seven steals.

Romey Croatt had 12 points, five rebounds, four steals and three assists for the Wolves.

“We knew going into this that it was going to be a really hard game, give all the credit to them once their best player got in that foul trouble we really used that to exploit them,” Bilic said. “We just kept going and played really, really hard on defense and I give all that credit to my teammates.”

Waukee Northwest post players Victoria Burpo and Cassidy Danburg combined for 18 points and eight rebounds as the Wolves finished with a 36-22 rebounding edge that included 18 offensive rebounds.

“I really think the play of our two post players was pivotal,” Powell said. “We got 18 points between Burpo and Danburg and that kind of loosened up the perimeter.”

Junior Sasha Baldwin had nine points for West High and Van Waning added six points and four rebounds for the Trojans.

West High                               8    7   18  16  – 49

Waukee Northwest             16  21  25  18  – 80

West High (49) – Ava Frese 2-4 1-2 5, Kate Van Waning 2-4 0-0 6, Abby Neumiller 0-8 2-2 2, Grace Fincham 4-7 4-4 13, Sasha Baldwin 3-8 0-0 9, Savannah Mathias 1-1 1-2 3, Josephine Austen 1-2 2-2 4, Olivia Headings 1-1 0-0 3, Taleen Rahhal 1-1 0-0 2, Kate Havel 1-1 0-0 2, Kira Baldwin 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 16-38 10-12 49.

Waukee Northwest (80) – Sadie McCann 8-11 1-2 18, Vana Bilic 6-12 2-2 15, Logan Vogt 0-2 1-2 1, Romey Croatt 5-10 0-0 12, Cassidy Danburg 4-6 1-2 9, Grace McCann 1-4 0-0 2, Dylan Peterson 1-2 0-0 3, Leah Janulewicz 0-4 2-2 2, Liv Brown 0-2 0-0 0, Chloe Moen 1-1 2-2 5, Victoria Burpo 1-4 7-7 9, Hadley Gentzler 2-3 0-0 4, Totals 29-61 16-19 80,

3-point field goal – WNW 6-20 (S. McCann 1-2, Bilic 1-4, Vogt 0-2, Croatt 2-5, G. McCann 0-2, Peterson 1-1, Janulewicz 0-1, Brown 0-1, Moen 1-1, Gentzler 0-1), ICW 7-19 (Van Waning 2-3, Neumiller 0-6, Fincham 1-2, Baldwin 3-6, Austen 0-1, Headings 1-1). Rebounds – WNW 36 (S. McCann 6), ICW 22 (Fincham 8). Assists – WNW 15 (Bilic 4), ICW 8 (Fincham 4). Turnovers – WNW 6, ICW 20. Total fouls – WNW 16, ICW 13. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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