The Ankeny girls’ basketball players are hoping that Saturday’s game against Urbandale won’t be their only opportunity this season to play at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines.
The fourth-ranked Hawkettes built a 42-23 lead after three quarters and went on to post a 50-40 victory on the same court that will host the Class 5A state tournament in a few weeks.
“We played some good defense in the middle of the game and shot the ball well from 3 in the first half,” said Ankeny coach Nate Tobey.
The game was similar to the Hawkettes’ 59-45 win at Urbandale on Jan. 6. In that game, Tobey’s squad led by as many as 26 points before the J-Hawks closed the gap in the second half.
On Saturday, Ankeny was outscored by a 17-8 margin in the final period.
“After we got out to a lead, Urbandale got very aggressive and we didn’t always respond very well,” Tobey said. “We weren’t able to do our jobs and extend the lead.”
Ainsley Kiene scored 18 points, Reagan Baldwin tied her career-high with 15 and Jayla Williams added 11 as the Hawkettes improved to 9-5 in the CIML Conference and 13-6 overall. Urbandale’s records dropped to 2-13 and 3-16.
Williams’ streak of consecutive games with 20 or more points ended at seven, but she still reached double figures for the 26th straight contest dating back to last year. She also moved closer to the school’s career and single-season scoring records.
Williams is now 77 points shy of Erica Junod’s single-season record of 484 points, which was set in 1998-99. She needs 90 points to tie Nicky Wieben’s career mark of 1,392 points, which was set in 2002-05.
Ankeny will travel to Waukee Northwest on Tuesday for another conference game against the No. 2 Wolves, who are 11-3 in the league and 15-4 overall.
Northwest has been idle since posting a 66-44 win at Waukee last Tuesday for its fifth straight victory. The Wolves won the first meeting at Ankeny, 63-39, on Jan. 9.
