(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The Ankeny Centennial boys’ basketball team knows that each night is going to be a battle in a loaded CIML Conference.
And the Jaguars opened their season with potentially one of their hardest fights of the entire year.
New head coach Matt Delger and the Jaguars went on the road Tuesday to face Class 4A title-contending Waukee Northwest and despite putting up a fight, they dropped a 64-21 decision to the Wolves.
“We’ll go watch the film and there’ll be a lot we’ll work on and a lot to learn from,” Delger said. “Our mentality is to keep getting better every day.”
Centennial is looking to bounce back from a season where the Jaguars went 5-17 and with Delger at the helm of the program after serving as an assistant under longtime coach Bob Fontana, they almost have to start from scratch.
Between graduations and departures, the Jaguars lost a bulk of last year’s roster, which included the team’s top five scorers.
Going into Northwest was bound to be an uphill battle as the Wolves are looking to dethrone Valley as Class 5A champions, but the new-look lineup from last season only makes things a little more difficult.
The Jaguars found stretches where they were able to stick with Northwest, which included early buckets from sophomore Keaton Kasperbauer and junior Hunter Runchey that made it a two-possession game.
“I like how we came out fearless and ready to compete,” Delger said. “There’s a lot of things we identified that we can build on and hopefully continually improve as the season goes on.”
But when the Wolves kicked it up another gear, Centennial just couldn’t stick with them.
Northwest’s bid for a state title is backed by one of the conference’s top duos of four-start Nebraska commit Colin Rice and three-star Illinois commit Landon Davis, who presented many problems for the Jaguars.
Centennial struggled to match the size, scoring, rebounding and rim protection that Rice and Davis were able to provide for the Wolves.
Davis scored 13 of his game-high 20 points during the first half to put the Jaguars into a 33-11 hole. Rice came out of the half and scored 10 of his 17 points in the third quarter to help Northwest continue to pull away.
“No doubt they’re very good players,” Delger said of Davis and Rice. “They’re very long, they make it very tough, and they’re very physical. They’re a great duo.”
The returning trio of Kasperbauer, Runchey and junior Luke Mitchell combined for 13 of the Jaguars’ points. Sophomore Trey Crawford chipped in four points off the bench, while senior Brody Prill and junior Devan Goode each added a bucket.
Kasperbauer scored all five of his points during the first half. He had the task of trying to score while being defended by Rice.
“(Kasperbauer) is very important,” Delger said. “Keaton’s put in a lot of work all offseason and he’s kind of stepped into a leadership role as a sophomore, which is awesome to see. He did a lot of good things out there tonight even if the scorebook doesn’t show it.”
The conference slate will continue to ramp up as the Jaguars will return home for their next two games. They will host Ankeny (1-0) on Friday before Dowling Catholic (1-0) visits the Centennial gym on Tuesday.
“We’ve been working a lot on a group of guys that play selfless basketball,” Delger said. “We have that group, there’s just some different things you’ve got to learn through experience in the CIML. As we continue to learn and gain more experience, I think we have a great group that can play selfless basketball.”