A late rally by the Ankeny Christian Academy boys’ basketball team came up just a little short.
The visiting Eagles cut a 16-point deficit down to one with about 2 minutes left before Madrid held on for a 66-58 victory in a non-conference game on Monday.
“Madrid is always a very personal matchup to me,” said ACA junior Jed Rood, who led the Eagles with 24 points. “They sent us home last year, so I was ready to go for this one.”
The game was a rematch of last year’s Class 1A substate final at the Knapp Center, which was won by Madrid, 66-46.
“All of these guys, and especially Jed, kind of had that bitter taste from what happened at Drake,” said ACA coach Jay Nihart. “Jed wanted this, and he’s not fearful at all. He’s going to go after it and get to his spot. We know he can do that every night, and I’m just really proud of how he got us started. That was really the one thing we had going in that first quarter.”
Rood scored his team’s first nine points of the game as the Eagles took an early 9-7 lead, but Madrid then closed the period with 14-3 run to build a 21-12 advantage. Zach Newell made a 3-point goal with 1 second left to cap the flurry.
“We put ourselves in a tough hole that first quarter,” Nihart said. “We didn’t quite come out with the intensity that I think we needed to have, but after halftime we stepped it up. The guys got hot and we pushed the ball like we needed to.”
After Madrid took its biggest lead of the game, 45-29, on a basket by Max Fowler midway through the third quarter, Rood answered with a jumper to ignite the Eagles’ rally. ACA closed the gap to 47-36 on a 3-pointer by Andrew Mora with 2 seconds to go in the period.
Sophomore guard Kade Clarkson then erupted in the fourth quarter, scoring all 12 of his points in the final period. Ten of his points came in a span of 3 minutes 11 seconds.
Clarkson made a floater for his first basket of the night with 5:51 left, then converted a steal into a layup 23 seconds later to cut the margin to 49-46.
“We were really struggling on offense down there,” said Clarkson. “We got down by 16, and I knew I had to do something myself to get a little spark going.”
Madrid (8-3) answered with six straight points to make it 55-46, but Clarkson then connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to close the gap to 55-52 with 2:40 remaining. Rood followed with a pair of free throws to make it 55-54 with 2:09 to go.
“I thought we were going to get it done, but some shots didn’t fall and they made some good plays against us,” Clarkson said. “But there’s a lot of positives to take away from this loss.”
Madrid got a basket from sophomore Jevyn Severson to halt the Eagles’ rally with 1:40 left. The 6-foot-6 forward then grabbed an offensive rebound on the Tigers’ next possession and put it back in, barely beating the shot clock with 47 seconds to go.
Severson finished with 26 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks.
“We tried so many different things with him,” Nihart said. “We tried throwing double teams at him, and we tried some face-guarding. But it is a tough task–he’s a very gifted athlete. We tried everything we could, and thankfully we were able to get some turnovers there at the end and be able to get it out of his hands. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t come away with the win at the end.”
Logan Bogardus added 15 points for the Tigers. He made six consecutive free throws in the final 28 seconds to seal the victory.
The loss ended a four-game winning streak for ACA (6-2), which missed its first six free throws and went just 6-of-15 at the line.
“We got it down to one and felt good, but then some shots wouldn’t fall and they hit some clutch free throws,” Nihart said. “I’m happy with the way we came back, but I think we all know we could have started a lot better. And we missed too many free throws.”
Rood said he thinks the Eagles will benefit from the loss.
“It makes us better,” he said. “We love playing teams that we have to focus on a matchup just because in the playoffs every team has a guy like (Severson). We really like matching up with teams like Madrid, and earlier this year it was Pleasantville.”
Madrid also won the girls’ game, 48-30. The loss dropped the Eagles’ record to 1-4.
Madrid (7-4) built a 28-15 lead at halftime. The Tigers outscored ACA in every quarter, including a 17-8 margin in the second period.
The Eagles will head to Mormon Trail on Tuesday for a Bluegrass Conference doubleheader against the Saints.
