With only five games left in the regular season, the Ankeny girls’ basketball team discovered that it might not be ready for postseason play.
The fourth-ranked Hawkettes never led in Monday’s non-conference game and dropped a 65-57 decision to visiting Dallas Center-Grimes, the No. 4 team in Class 4A.
“They’re good, and we made them look pretty good at times with our lack of execution defensively, which we’ve really been fighting for a few weeks now,” said Ankeny coach Nate Tobey. “They’re just so well coached and so skilled that they were able to take advantage of all of those miscues.”
The loss ended a three-game winning streak for Ankeny (11-5), which got another huge performance from Jayla Williams. The senior guard scored 18 of her 28 points in the second half, finishing with 20 or more for the fifth consecutive game.
Williams moved ahead of Kristina Voss and Maddie Manning on the Hawkettes’ all-time scoring list. She now has 1,235 career points and is within striking distance of the school record of 1,392, which was set by Nicky Wieben in 2002-05.
“I just feel like I try to do what I can to help my team a lot, whether that’s scoring or trying not to turn the ball over especially as a point guard,” said Williams. “Sometimes, I’ve been struggling with that, but lately some of my shots have been falling so that helps with that.”
Dallas Center-Grimes (13-2) has won five straight games since suffering back-to-back losses earlier this month. The Mustangs shot 53.3 percent from the field (24-of-45).
“It was a tough battle. We did our best–everything we could,” said Ankeny guard Ainsley Kiene, who scored 11 points. “They shot lights out. They finish really (well). They’re a great team, and they’ll do super (well) in 4A.”
Leah Brauch led Dallas Center-Grimes with 22 points on 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point range. She made all five of her treys in the first half, four of them in the second quarter.
Brauch entered the game with just 17 3-pointers on 28.3 percent shooting from behind the arc.
“She was open for a lot of those, and she’s been a good shooter in her career,” Tobey said. “We knew we had to take those away, and we just didn’t do a very good job of it.”
Brauch opened the second period with back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Mustangs a 25-14 lead. She made another one to extend the margin to 30-16, then later answered a 6-0 run by Ankeny with another trey to make it 35-24 at halftime.
“We just wait too long (to get going), and you can’t let a quality team like that get up to a lead and have any type of hope (to win),” Tobey said.
Dallas Center-Grimes held a 51-39 lead after three quarters, but the Hawkettes closed the gap on a pair of 3-pointers by Reagan Baldwin and Williams in the opening minute of the final period.
Williams eventually scored eight straight points for her team, including another 3-pointer that cut the Mustangs’ lead to 59-50. She is now averaging 21.3 points per game and has scored 340 points in 16 games, putting her within range of Erica Junod’s single-season school record of 484 points.
“She’s incredible,” Kiene said of her teammate. “She works so hard every practice, every game. I’m so proud of her. She wasn’t even feeling the best tonight and still dropped 28 points. It’s crazy. She’s an incredible player, and I love playing with her.”
Ava Smid had a double-double for Dallas Center-Grimes, finishing with 11 points, 12 rebounds and a block. Macy Meyer added 10 points and five assists.
Ankeny’s Kyla Schaapveld scored eight points. Ali Aguirre chipped in seven.
The Hawkettes will now have a week off before traveling to Southeast Polk next Monday for a CIML Conference game against the Rams (2-12), who lost the first meeting at Ankeny, 52-38, on Dec. 16.
“We have work to do,” Tobey said. “We just have to go back to the drawing board.”
Three of Ankeny’s final four opponents will be the top three teams in Class 5A.
“Obviously, our goal is to make it to state, and I think we just have to get back to square one and see where we’re going wrong and just get it back,” Kiene said. “We can’t be giving up right now just because we had one loss. We’ve just got to get it back.”