The Ankeny girls’ basketball team had nothing to lose on Monday night.
It nearly resulted in a massive upset.
The eighth-ranked Hawkettes put a huge scare into No. 1 Johnston before the visiting Dragons, who are ranked 20th in the nation by ESPN, scored the last six points of the game to hold on for a 62-52 victory.
“It was nice to see our girls rise to the challenge,” said Ankeny coach Nat Tobey. “Really, they haven’t backed down from anybody this year, regardless of the opponent. We’ve had some tough games with our schedule, but they’re not scared of anybody and they have fun going toe-to-toe with the best teams.”
Johnston, which had already wrapped up the CIML Conference title, improved to 15-0 in the league and 20-0 overall. Ankeny’s records dropped to 5-9 and 10-9.
The Hawkettes lost the first meeting at Johnston, 70-49, on Dec. 1.
“They’re No. 1 in the state, they’re undefeated, and they’re extremely good,” Ankeny senior Cassie Johnson said of the Dragons. “We just kind of went in with no fear and did what we could.”
Ainsley Kiene led Ankeny with 19 points, while Johnson chipped in 12. It was a career-high for both players.
Kiene made 5-of-6 attempts from 3-point range.
“Personally, I haven’t been shooting the best, but this game it really came to play,” said Kiene, who also had four steals. “It was a good game to do it.”
The Hawkettes held a 33-31 advantage at halftime. Johnson had 11 of her points in the first half, including a trio of treys.
“I felt really good in warmups,” said Johnson, who was averaging just 2.4 points. “And in practice, I’ve been working a lot and my teammates have been getting me the ball. It felt good tonight.”
The 5-foot-8 Johnson also excelled on the defensive end of the court, where she helped hold 6-1 Amani Jenkins to 10 points on 5-of-10 shooting. Jenkins also had nine rebounds, helping her team to a 33-17 advantage on the boards.
“In practice we just work a lot on being physical, and we try to front the (post),” said Johnson, who also had five rebounds. “The coaches just keep drilling into us that it’s not about the height. It’s about the heart, and you can do it.”
Johnston took the lead for good, though, when Jenkins passed to Aili Tanke for a layup that broke a 36-36 tie with 5 minutes 30 seconds left in the third quarter. Tanke and Jenica Lewis followed with back-to-back 3-pointers, then Aaliyah Riley made a basket to give the Dragons a 46-40 lead after three periods.
“We tried to control the tempo as much as we could,” Tobey said. “We tried to help off certain players and onto their best players, but they make it so hard to guard them because they’re a great team. Tanke and Lewis especially are so hard to guard, but for the most part I felt like our girls were up to the task.”
Lewis, a sophomore, made two more 3-pointers to open the fourth quarter, extending the margin to 52-42. She finished with a game-high 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting from behind the arc.
“When you can make shots from NBA range, everything gets spread out and makes it a lot harder to deal with,” Tobey said of Lewis. “She’s just really impressive and has gotten a lot better over the course of this year.”
Ankeny got a pair of 3-pointers from Kiene in an 8-0 run that closed the gap to 54-50 with 2:15 remaining. The Hawkettes pulled within 56-52 on a basket by Karsen Jacks with 1:15 to go, but Tanke then made four straight free throws and Riley added two more to seal the win.
Tanke finished with 17 points. Riley had 12 points, three assists and three steals.
Only one team has lost to Johnston by fewer than 10 points. That came on Jan. 26, when the Dragons posted a 64-59 victory at Ankeny Centennial.
“That game gave us some confidence (that we could play with them, too),” Kiene said.
Ankeny finished with nine 3-pointers.
“We’ve had our shots fall more often the last couple of games, and that just gives you so much of a better feeling,” Tobey said.
Ankeny will play another conference game at Urbandale (0-14, 4-15) on Tuesday. The Hawkettes won the first meeting, 50-29, on Jan. 5.