The Ankeny girls’ basketball team relied heavily on all-state guard Jayla Williams to reach the state tournament for the first time since 2013.
But on a day when Williams became the program’s all-time leading scorer, it was the squad’s supporting cast who led a second-half charge that lifted the sixth-ranked Hawkettes into the Class 5A semifinals at the Casey’s Center.
Seniors Reagan Baldwin and Kyla Schaapveld each made five 3-point goals and scored 15 points as Ankeny rallied past No. 5 Cedar Rapids Washington, 57-44, in the quarterfinal round on Monday.
“It feels amazing,” said Schaapveld, who set a new career-high by going 5-of-8 from behind the arc. “We were shooting the lights out.”
The Warriors (18-5) took a 37-36 lead into the fourth quarter before Schaapveld made her fifth triple to put Ankeny ahead to stay with 7 minutes 30 seconds left. Ali Aguirre followed with another 3-pointer, then Baldwin made three more down the stretch to extend the margin to 55-41 with 2:38 to go.
“We can light it up pretty good,” said Baldwin, who tied her career-high by going 5-of-10 from deep. “We practiced all week doing that. it was pretty cool to see everyone work together so well.”
Ankeny (16-8) made 8-of-12 shots from the field in the final period, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range. Overall, the Hawkettes went 12-of-29 from behind the arc (41.4 percent).
“This is what they’re capable of,” said Ankeny coach Nate Tobey. “They weren’t guarding Kyla, and we talked a lot about that going into the game. We needed to take advantage of that, and she certainly did by making five 3s.”
Williams committed five turnovers against Washington’s constant pressure, but the Creighton recruit still stuffed the stat sheet with 18 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, five steals and a block. She made the first of two free throws with 1:44 remaining in the third quarter to cut the Warriors’ lead to 33-31.
The free throw increased Williams’ career total to 1,393 points, allowing her to surpass the all-time mark of 1,392 that was set by Nicky Wieben in 2002-05.
“It was fun. But to be honest, I’m just really happy to get the win,” said Williams. “We were the underdog, and we weren’t supposed to win. But we knew they hadn’t played the same kind of competition that we had.”
Washington led by as many as six points on three different occasions. The Warriors still held a 37-33 advantage after 6-foot-4 Sira Doumbia scored off a rebound late in the third quarter.
But that was the final basket of the game for Doumbia, who was limited to just seven points and seven boards. A strong defensive performance by Baldwin held Doumbia well below her season averages of 16 and 10.
“It was a big team effort,” Baldwin said. “My teammates helped me so much. We just prepped and prepped for this all week. Just being confident and trying to push her away from the basket and not let her get rebounds over us. That was a big focus.”
From there, Ankeny’s offense simply took over. Schaapveld hit a 3-pointer for the final basket of the third quarter, then made the go-ahead trey right in front of the Hawkettes’ bench to open the fourth.
“I just decided to shoot the ball, and my shots were falling today,” Schaapveld said.
The Warriors elected not to guard Schaapveld at the start of the game. They used Doumbia to patrol the paint as a help defender against Williams’ drives to the basket, and the strategy backfired.
“We expected them to do that,” Williams said. “We’ve seen them do that on film, and they’re a really feisty team. We just had to dribble in and then we had pretty much whatever we wanted, which was Kyla with some open 3s. They kept disrespecting her by not guarding her, and we were able to take full advantage of that.”
Washington coach Chris James said his team was simply playing the percentages.
“We had planned to lay off (Schaapveld) a little bit because she averages four points a game, and for her to have a game like that, kudos to her,” said James. “We just didn’t rotate a couple of times on defense, and we left the wrong people open. It felt like from the midway point of the third quarter on that they didn’t miss. We knew that would happen if we left them open.”
The Warriors opened the second quarter with a 9-0 run to erase Ankeny’s 15-9 lead. Samantha Becker capped the run with four consecutive free throws after Williams was called for a foul on an attempted block, then received a technical for her reaction to the call.
“I was definitely frustrated because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Williams said. “I tracked her down from half-court, and then they bailed her out (with the call). But I had a stupid reaction after that, which hurt us. I feel like I was able to keep my composure a lot better in the second half, but I need to learn from that. That was a bad thing for me to do–to show my emotions like that. It was selfish in the moment.”
Becker scored 10 of her 13 points in the first half to help Washington to a 24-20 lead. She also finished with 10 rebounds and three steals.
Becker left the game for a couple of minutes after she opened the second half with a steal that she converted into a layup. She aggravated a knee injury that she has been dealing with for the last two seasons.
“We got out of sync a little bit when Sam went out,” James said. “It’s happened a few times with her this year, but there are no excuses. We didn’t respond the way I was hoping we would. (Ankeny) earned it. They played really well.”
Tobey was proud of the way his seniors stepped up with the Hawkettes’ season on the line. Ainsley Kiene had four points, four rebounds and two assists, while Allison Hawkins–the only reserve who saw any action–contributed two rebounds, an assist and a steal in 16 minutes on the court.
“It was nice to see us fight so hard,” Tobey said. “We had some opportunities to kind of give in, but we certainly did not do that. Our seniors showed all of their growth in that game, and it was great to see.”
Ankeny will play No. 1 Johnston (25-0) in Thursday’s semifinals at 10 a.m. The Dragons advanced with a 54-30 triumph over No. 12 Ankeny Centennial.
Johnston owns the longest winning streak in the country at 77 games, which includes 74-51 and 50-32 victories over the Hawkettes this season.
“I think it’ll be a lot about managing possessions and managing nerves,” Tobey said. “We talked about that today, and it’ll be the same thing on Thursday against a really good team that is really well coached.”
Ankeny made 7-of-20 3-pointers in the first game at Johnston and just 3-of-19 in the rematch. Baldwin thinks her team can carry the momentum from Monday’s win over to Thursday’s game.
“I’m very confident that we do (have a shot against them),” Baldwin said.
Schaapveld agreed with her fellow sniper.
“If we keep shooting like we did today, we definitely have a chance,” she said.
No. 2 Dowling Catholic (21-3) will face No. 3 Waukee Northwest (18-5) in the other semifinal at 11:45 a.m. The winners will play for the title on Friday at 6 p.m.
