(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
With about 4 minutes 30 seconds left in the third quarter, the Ankeny Centennial boys’ basketball team faced one of its largest deficits in Tuesday’s game against visiting Urbandale.
Davis Hardersen knocked down a 3-pointer to extend the J-Hawks’ lead to 41-19 as they appeared to be ready to cruise to victory on Centennial’s home court.
But over the course of the next 12 and a half minutes, the Jaguars dug deep and rallied back from the 22-point deficit, ultimately having their big comeback attempt fall just short in a 57-54 loss.
Centennial’s offense struggled coming out of the gates as Urbandale held the Jaguars to just six points in the first quarter while building a 15-6 lead.
The deficit kept growing in the second quarter while the Jaguars still tried to find their footing offensively.
Evan Abbott, Cayden Clark and Luke Mitchell strung together a 6-2 run late in the period before Urbandale managed to get the ball down the court and nail a buzzer-beater 3-pointer in just 3.3 seconds to take the momentum back before halftime.
It led to a 7-2 Urbandale run out of half that left the Jaguars looking at a 22-point hole nearly midway through the third quarter.
Then a quick 5-0 run for the Jaguars changed things moving forward.
All it took was Rex Jensen poking the ball loose for Clark to score on a fast break, Cabryn Klinger scoring through a pair of defenders down low, and Abbott converting once from the free-throw line.
Centennial went on a late run to close out the quarter with just a 15-point deficit going into one of its best offensive periods of the season.
Clark made a 3-pointer and Sean Tunks stole a pass for an easy bucket to make it a 10-point game. Abbott followed by recording back-to-back 3-point plays off a trey and scoring through a shooting foul and converting at the line.
Suddenly, it was a two-possession game for the first time since the first quarter.
Tunks and Abbott continued to take over the game for Centennial, eventually helping the Jaguars to forge a tie.
Tunks scored through a foul, converted his free throw and added another basket following an Urbandale turnover. Abbott banked in a floater and found an open layup off an assist from Jensen to make it a 3-point game with under 2 minutes to play.
Centennial hadn’t been tied with Urbandale since the start of the game, but the J-Hawks made the mistake of leaving Tunks open beyond the arc and the senior connected from deep to tie the game at 53-53 with under a minute to play.
Free throws ultimately decided the game in the J-Hawks’ favor.
Hardersen went 2-of-2 from the line to give Urbandale a 55-53 lead with 22 seconds left. Abbott went 1-of-2 from the line with 6 seconds left and the Jaguars were forced to foul, which led Hardersen to sink another two free throws.
With just 4.8 seconds left, Klingner went down the court, but had to take a contested 3 at the buzzer that bounced off the glass to seal Centennial’s second loss of the season to the J-Hawks.
Urbandale improved to 2-7 in the CIML Conference and 2-8 overall. The Jaguars’ records dropped to 0-9 and 1-9.
Tunks went 9-of-15 from the field and finished with a double-double, racking up a game-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. Abbott had 16 points, while Jensen dished out six assists.
Hardersen led Urbandale with 18 points. Caden Burns added 13 points and eight boards.
The Jaguars will host another conference game on Friday against No. 9 Dowling Catholic, which is coming off a 74-62 loss to No. 2 Valley on Tuesday. The Maroons are 5-3 in the league and 8-3 overall.
Dowling won the first meeting, 69-54, on Dec. 10.
