(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
It was an uphill battle most of the way for the Ankeny Centennial girls’ basketball team.
In the end, the fourth-ranked Jaguars fell just a little short.
Despite battling back from a 10-point deficit and a strong second half from senior Mya Crawford, Centennial dropped a 57-53 decision at No. 12 Waukee in a CIML Conference game on Friday. The Warriors closed out the contest with a 9-2 run.
“(Waukee) is a really good team, and going through the conference is hard,” said Centennial coach Scott DeJong. “They came out and shot the ball really, really well right away. I thought we weren’t quite into our defense and then we’re battling uphill the rest of the game. I was proud of how we came back, competed and got ahead. We just didn’t finish out the game well.”
It was the tail end of the first and second quarters where the Warriors built up their leads and forced Centennial to play from behind.
Coming off an impressive win over North Polk where the Jaguars made 11 3-point goals, Centennial knew just how effective some efficient shooting beyond the arc could be.
But this time around, the Jaguars were on the opposite side of it.
The Warriors connected on eight 3-pointers, six of them in the first half. The other two treys came at the start of the second half, which led to Centennial’s 10-point deficit.
Jaeden Pratt was the early spark of offense for the Jaguars, scoring eight of the team’s 13 points in the first quarter. Crawford, Finley Blackmore and Maize Smith helped keep Centennial within striking distance as the Warriors took a 30-23 lead into the halftime break.
Things took a turn for the better for the Jaguars midway through the third quarter when senior Tillie Smith connected on back-to-back triples to pull her team within four points.
“That was huge,” DeJong said. “(The lead) was about nine or 10 and she cut six points off the lead. She hit some big shots, and we could’ve found her a little more often probably.”
Crawford, who already had three points in the quarter and eight total to that point, then stepped up to carry the offense.
The Drake commit tallied four more points at the end of the period and helped make it a one-possession game. Crawford proceeded to tie the game at 40-40 and score the Jaguars’ first three buckets to open the fourth quarter.
Centennial took its first lead of the game with 6 minutes 12 seconds left on a pair of Ava Martin free throws and held its largest lead at 49-45 following a Pratt bucket and a Crawford free throw.
Suzy Scott led Waukee in the first half, but it was freshman Abbajay Peters that helped the Warriors close out the game.
Peters scored through a foul and hit the following free throw to tie the game at 51-51, gave Waukee the go-ahead bucket for a 53-52 lead and intercepted a pass for a fast-break layup to put the Jaguars down three.
Pratt made it a two-point game with 50 seconds left and the ball ended up in the hands of Crawford with hopes of adding onto her team-high 22 points and tying the game, but the contested shot under the hoop didn’t go and Waukee sealed the game with some last-second free throws.
“They’re all troopers, (Crawford) is one of them, but they all compete as hard as they can,” DeJong said. “When you come up short, it hurts. But we’ve got a game (at Ames on Saturday), so we’ll suit back up and go at it.”
The Warriors improved to 5-8 in the conference and 9-9 overall. Centennial’s records dropped to 6-6 and 10-6.
Pratt had a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Blackmore and both Smiths added six points.
Centennial will visit Ames for a non-conference game on Saturday at 4 p.m. The Little Cyclones (9-8) are coming off a 57-32 win at Fort Dodge on Friday.
“Some of (this game) we do need to remember, so it doesn’t happen again, then it’s time to move on,” DeJong said.
