(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
They might’ve been down, but at no point did the Ankeny boys’ basketball players ever feel they were out of it.
The Hawks clawed their way back from several deficits during Tuesday’s matchup against unbeaten Johnston, but just couldn’t get over the hump as they dropped to 1-2 on the season with a 59-49 home loss.
“(Johnston) is a really good group of guys, and they’re hard to play against because they’re so good defensively and so disciplined,” said Ankeny coach Brandt Carlson. “We only made four layups and had to make everything else from (3-point range). That’s a tough formula to win.”
The Hawks got off to the start they were looking for fresh off a big rivalry win over Ankeny Centennial.
A 3-pointer from Johnston’s Prestige Taylor was answered by Jasani Campbell knocking down a trey from the corner and Rio Aguirre finding Kael Roush on a cut to the hoop before hitting an open 3 to give Ankeny an early 8-3 lead.
Tino Daye woke Johnston up by scoring back-to-back buckets before converting an and-one opportunity that sparked a 13-3 run for the Dragons that gave them a 16-11 lead after the first quarter. Daye ended up leading all scorers with 22 points.
That five-point cushion was just enough to keep the Hawks trailing from there on.
Ankeny was able to string together some small runs to keep the game within one or two possessions, but struggled to take the lead back from Johnston.
“This is essentially our third game with this group that they’ve ever played together,” Carlson said. “There’s still a lot of learning and a lot of experiences we have to go through. You just can’t have the errors we gave up.”
LaMarious Clark knocked down a turnaround jumper to make it a three-point game to open the second quarter. Aguirre made some free throws and drilled a 3-pointer at the end of the half to cut a 10-point deficit down to 27-22 going to the locker room.
Facing another 10-point deficit in the third quarter, Luke Anderson and Roush cashed in on back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the lead to four. Just when the Dragons built their lead back up, Anderson and Aguirre knocked down two more treys to keep it within five points.
After Anderson hit his third 3-pointer of the game to make it 46-40 with just under 7 minutes left to play, the Hawks struggled to get their shots beyond the arc to fall.
Dylan Gloviak tried to swing some momentum in Ankeny’s favor by battling Daye and stealing an inbounds pass for an easy layup with about 3 minutes left to play. After scoring the bucket, Gloviak was assessed a technical foul for taunting Daye.
“We didn’t give in,” Carlson said of his team’s effort. “We had it cut to eight, and then we had an unfortunate technical foul and just a kind of play that shouldn’t have happened and we know that. We’re right there, we cut it to four and five (points) multiple times and had a nice lead in the first quarter.”
The Hawks couldn’t claw their way back following the technical, and Daye ultimately put the game to rest by knocking down another pair of free throws with about a minute remaining.
Aguirre had 15 points and four assists to lead Ankeny, which went 11-of-22 from 3-point range but couldn’t overcome 4-of-19 shooting from inside the arc and a 35-19 rebounding disadvantage. Anderson finished with 11 points, and Drew Sorensen added eight.
Seth Gipple had 11 points and a game-high six rebounds for the Dragons, who are tied atop the CIML Conference standings with Valley at 3-0. The Hawks also went toe-to-toe with Valley in their season opener.
“Sometimes you go into a season and wonder if you can compete with a really good team,” Carlson said. “There’s no doubt that we can. Now we’ve got to try to figure out if we can win more of them. We’ll keep building on it and use every experience to do that. I think we grew up a lot tonight and learned a ton.”
The Hawks are presented with a chance to right the ship and get back into the win column as they go out on the road for back-to-back conference games against Waukee on Friday and Southeast Polk on Tuesday. The Warriors (2-2) are coming off a 63-43 win over Southeast Polk on Tuesday.
“It’s frustrating, but at the same time, we love our guys,” Carlson said. “We play for February and March, so we’ll just keep trying to get better and growing through it.”
