(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The Ankeny Centennial girls’ basketball team was hoping to build off of its win over Urbandale a week ago and head into the holiday break with some positive momentum.
But a matchup against fourth-ranked Valley ended the Jaguars’ December slate with a 29-point loss.
Centennial struggled to get its offense going in the first half, and the visiting Tigers cruised to a 57-28 victory on Friday night.
“I (applaud) the girls’ courage,” said Centennial coach Chris Harken, whose team dropped to 1-4 in the CIML Conference and overall. “The second half we came back and fought a bit. We had a pretty good fourth quarter. We just have to figure out how to put a whole game together cohesively.”
The Jaguars were able to keep it close in the opening minutes as freshman Faith Perpich and junior Lizzie Beam answered back-to-back buckets from Valley’s Tylee Weite before both teams went through a scoring drought.
But then Valley’s Jenna Fuller and Kari Rose knocked down consecutive 3-point goals to ignite a Tigers’ surge.
A one-possession game with 2 minutes 30 seconds left on the clock turned into a 17-6 lead for Valley at the end of the first quarter.
The Tigers then outscored Centennial in the second period, 17-2, to build a 34-8 advantage.
“I think we came back and started the game with a good game plan,” Harken said. “But once we had a couple turnovers and Valley hit those back-to-back threes, we kind of got into a little sulking situation. It stuttered our feet and spun our wheels a little bit.”
Centennial struggled to find reliable open looks and also committed 21 turnovers. Beam got a floater to fall at the end of the first quarter, and freshman Nyah Weger scored the Jaguars’ lone points of the second period from the free-throw line.
Centennial had more success in the second half with Beam carrying a heavy load as she scored 17 of her career-high 21 points in the last two quarters. She went 6-of-14 from the field and 8-of-10 at the line, but her teammates combined to score just seven points on 1-of-17 shooting.
The Jaguars, who got five points from Perpich, went just 1-of-12 from 3-point range.
“(Beam) has been working hard, and you can tell that she wants it,” Harken said. “She just keeps fighting. Without her, I don’t know where we’d be. But we have a lot of other girls that look up to her, and we’re grateful she’s a part of this team.”
The win was the third in a row for Valley. The Tigers raised their records to 4-2 in the league and 6-2 overall.
It’s been a gauntlet thus far for the Jaguars, who were expecting some major growing pains coming into the season with an inexperienced roster and a first-year head coach.
All four of Centennial’s losses have come against teams currently ranked among the top five squads in Class 5A. And the Jaguars have yet to play No. 1 Johnston, a team that it will face on Jan. 9.
Centennial will host No. 13 Waukee on Jan. 2 before they hit the road for a stretch of games against Class 4A No. 3 Norwalk, No. 15 Southeast Polk and Johnston.
“I wish I could say that (the season) gets easier, but it’s the CIML,” Harken said. “But I think in the second half there’s a couple more games that we have opportunities to compete, be close in and potentially win. That’s a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ situation and if we can end the season on a positive note and continue to grow, good things can still happen for these girls.”
