The Ankeny Centennial boys’ basketball team is guaranteed to finish the season with a losing record.
But that doesn’t mean that the Jaguars can’t make some noise in the postseason.
Centennial kept its season alive on Monday by rolling to a 78-47 victory at Sioux City North in a Class 4A substate quarterfinal. The Jaguars were one of three teams from the CIML Conference–along with Southeast Polk and Urbandale–to record road wins on the opening night of the postseason.
“It shows you what kind of competition we’re playing,” said Centennial coach Bob Fontana, whose team improved to 5-16. “It just shows you the strength of our league.”
North finished the season at 9-13. The Stars jumped out to an early 9-0 lead, but it didn’t take long for Centennial to grab control of the game.
“They hit three 3-pointers on their first three possessions and I was like, ‘Oh gosh!'” Fontana said. “But we had a timeout, got things straightened out, and chipped away at the lead.”
The Jaguars closed the gap to 13-8 by the end of the first quarter. They outscored North in the second period, 22-7, to build a 30-20 advantage.
Centennial then used a 26-point third quarter to pull away to a 56-34 margin.
“We had a pretty strong second quarter and a really good third quarter,” Fontana said.
Nobody had a better game than Centennial senior Sean Tunks, who scored 30 points on 12-of-20 shooting and grabbed 11 rebounds to finish with a double-double.
“Sean had a great game,” Fontana said.
Tunks also dished out six assists and had six steals.
“Offensively what was working was the whole team–not just me,” said Tunks. “My teammates knocked down open shots and also looked for the open guy, which led us to a high-scoring game.”
Rex Jensen went 2-of-5 from 3-point range and matched his career-high with 12 points. Luke Mitchell also scored a career-high 12, going a perfect 6-of-6 from the field.
Cabryn Klingner had eight points, seven rebounds and six assists. Cayden Clark also chipped in eight points.
“I thought Clark played a really solid floor game on both ends of the court,” Fontana said.
Junior guard Kal Chamberlain scored 18 points for North–about two below his average. He was shooting a Class 4A-best 95.2 percent at the charity stripe (79-of-83).
“We did the best that we could in limiting his touches,” Fontana said. “He ended up with 18, but some of those were really late. We held them to six free throws, which was huge, and we didn’t give up another 3-pointer after they hit those first three.”
The Jaguars will now travel to fourth-ranked Waukee Northwest on Friday for a substate semifinal against the Wolves (19-3), who are riding a nine-game winning streak.
“They’re obviously very good,” Fontana said. “We know we have our work cut out for us. We just want to play fearless and as hard as we can, and do it for 32 minutes.”
The Jaguars opened the season on Dec. 3 with a 60-38 loss to Northwest. Landon Davis nearly had a triple-double for the Wolves, finishing with 10 points, 10 rebounds and nine blocks.
Northwest then won the rematch, 77-36, on Jan. 10. The Wolves shot 67.3 percent from the field (33-of-49).
“They’ve got five guys who can score,” Fontana said.
The Jaguars were outrebounded in the two games by margins of 36-21 and 38-10.
“We have to rebound and get stops leading us to our offense–it’s that simple,” Tunks said. “They are a super talented team, but I believe in each and every one of the guys on my team to step up and play together.”
