The Ankeny boys’ basketball team didn’t panic when it fell behind at halftime, 28-23, against its visiting archrival on Friday.
The Hawks knew there was still plenty of time to make a comeback.
Rio Aguirre scored 16 of his 22 points in the second half and Ankeny dominated the final 16 minutes of the game to post a 58-48 victory over Ankeny Centennial.
“There wasn’t really any adjustments; we just had to get (the ball) moving differently,” said Aguirre, who also had 10 rebounds and five assists. “The first half I started off pretty slow. We weren’t getting the looks we wanted so we just made sure we got back into the offense we’ve been working on, and that’s what got us moving.”
The Hawks closed out the game with a 26-11 run. They improved to 1-1 in the CIML Conference and overall, while Centennial’s records dropped to 0-2 and 0-2.
“I just think we executed better,” said Ankeny coach Brandt Carlson. “Our guys were nervous. They can say that we’ve been in these big games, but a lot of these guys haven’t. It was just fun to work with them on that and not overload them with all this info, but get back to our basics a little bit. We just needed to get our bodies moving and get some spacing so our guys could attack and do something.”
Will Smith scored 11 points and Evan Abbott had nine for Centennial, which has now lost the last three meetings in the series–including a 64-41 decision in a Class 4A substate final last year. Rex Jensen and Owen Liechti each added eight points.
“With our inexperience, we’re trying to take it one step at a time,” said Centennial coach Bob Fontana. “I thought we were better from game one to game two, but obviously it wasn’t good enough for the win. We’re looking at different rotations and kind of experimenting, I guess you could say. It’s a process, especially for our younger, inexperienced guys. We just have to stay the course, and hopefully we’ll continue to get better.”
Ankeny used a 9-0 run in the first quarter to take an 11-4 lead, but the Jaguars battled back. They closed the gap to 13-10 at the end of the period, then opened the second quarter with a 17-6 flurry to build a 27-19 advantage.
Smith had four points in the run, while Luke Mitchell, Cabryn Klingner and Liechti each added three.
“Those guys are tough and they make it really difficult with the dribble drive, so we’re very pleased with the win,” Carlson said. “I thought our defense was a lot better the second half. We were a lot more engaged on the weak side, which was great. We only got three stops the whole second quarter. They just had us all out of sorts. We just had to go back to our basics.”
Another basket by Liechti gave Centennial a 37-32 lead midway through the third quarter, but Drew Sorensen then responded with a driving layup to spark the Hawks’ decisive run. He finished with 12 points and four steals.
Aguirre turned a steal into a layup, then converted a 3-point play and added a pair of free throws as Ankeny tied the game at 41-41 after three quarters.
“He’s really, really good, and he’s growing up,” Carlson said of Aguirre, who was coming off a career-high 30-point effort in a loss at Valley on Tuesday. “He’s more mature, and he’s handling stress. We’re just glad he’s on our team, that’s for sure.”
Aguirre found teammate Luke Anderson for a 3-pointer with 6 minutes 4 seconds left, putting Ankeny ahead for good. Aguirre later passed to Jasani Campbell for another basket that helped to seal the win.
Campbell had 11 points for the Hawks.
“We all work hard every single day,” Aguirre said. “We put in the time and the effort in practice. I love all my guys, and I have full confidence in all of them.”
In between those two baskets, Aguirre scored seven consecutive points. After making four free throws, he converted another 3-point play to push the margin to 51-43.
“I thought we played pretty well, especially defensively the first half,” Fontana said. “But they tied it up going into the fourth, then they went on that run to go up by seven and we never really recovered. I thought we did a good job of defending the 3 against (Aguirre), but in the second half he got in the lane on us and went 8-of-10 at the line. They outscored us at the line (14-9), which is a point of emphasis for us.
“We outrebounded them (30-27) and we had 13 offensive rebounds, but we didn’t capitalize on enough of them,” he added.
Both teams will be back in action on Tuesday. The Hawks will host a conference game against Johnston (2-0), while the Jaguars will travel to Dowling Catholic (1-0).
