There were a lot of open shots for the Ankeny girls’ basketball team during Friday’s game against visiting Marshalltown.
The Hawkettes didn’t miss many of them.
Ankeny jumped out to a 34-7 lead in the first quarter, extended the advantage to 66-16 at halftime and cruised to an 87-29 victory over the Bobcats. It was the fourth straight win for the Hawkettes, who improved to 2-0 in the CIML Iowa Conference and 4-1 overall.
“One of our main focuses was good versus great,” said Ankeny coach Dru McAnelly. “We talked a lot about that. We knew we could get shots we wanted, but we took a lot of great shots. When you make two or three passes or drive and kick, it’s amazing how much better you shoot in rhythm. We could easily have had 40 or 45 points at halftime but we had 66 because we did the little things. And we need those things to be habits because those are the things we have to do on nights when we’re playing other teams.”
Reserve guard Kendra Lewis led Ankeny with a career-high 23 points. She had four of the team’s 13 3-point goals.
“We knew that we would get minutes, but we played as a team and moved the ball well,” Lewis said. “I know the starters wanted to play well so that the other girls could get in.”
Lewis could become a key contributor for the Hawkettes. She had eight points in a win at Ames earlier this month.
“We’ve obviously seen signs of that in practice,” McAnelly said. “We just need to get her confidence up and more minutes. That definitely won’t hurt us (to have her contribute like that).”
Jadyn Filling also made four 3-pointers and scored a career-high 16 points. Jenna Pitz had 15 points, and Savannah Gage added 13.
Nine different Ankeny players scored at least two points, but nobody was hotter than Lewis–who had a huge second quarter.
“I know that my other teammates have my back,” Lewis said. “We can move the ball well, and Jenna’s a very confident point guard and she can get it to her other teammates.”
Marshalltown dropped to 0-2 in the league and 0-7 overall. The Bobcats opened the game in a zone defense after hosting Newton 24 hours earlier, but the strategy backfired in a big way.
“Ankeny does a great job of moving the ball to find open shooters, and when those shooters hit 90 percent of their shots there’s just not much to do,” Bobcats coach Brian Murphy told the Marshalltown Times-Republican. “We had planned to go zone to spell our legs, but with them shooting that well we couldn’t afford to do so.”
The Hawkettes will play three games in the next week, beginning with Monday’s non-conference contest at Indianola (4-1), the No. 5 team in Class 4A.
