West Fork stops inspired AGWSR effort

SHEFFIELD – Class 1A No. 5 West Fork stood in the way of AGWSR’s late resurgence this season, ending the Cougars’ campaign with a 67-52 victory at Sheffield on Tuesday, Feb. 25.

Four Warhawks scored in double figures, led by Ian Latham’s 17 points as they advanced to the Class 1A District 11 final on Thursday, Feb. 27 against Meskwaki Settlement School at Aplington-Parkersburg High School.

Both AGWSR and West Fork coaches Ryley Schipper and Frank Schnoes agreed, this was a hard-fought test.

“We wanted to slow the pace down. It got a little faster than what we wanted to play at, but I thought we did a really good job of playing with them,” Schipper said. “We had it where we wanted it at halftime. We were in the game, and that’s where we needed to be at. Our guys put up one heck of a fight tonight and we talked about, ‘if we are going to go out, we’re going out fighting,’ and I thought we fought tonight. I don’t think 15 (points) reflects how close the game was tonight. I couldn’t be more proud of the guys the way they played.”

The Cougars (9-14) trailed only by seven (40-33) at halftime and a basket by Luke Starr, who led all scorers with 18, closed the gap to five to start the second half.

“We saw them play Meskwaki at the end of the year and they beat Meskwaki and they were ahead really the whole game,” Schnoes said. “Their last five games, I’m sure they are playing a lot better now than they did. Our kids saw them play and they didn’t really surprise us. What surprised me was how we gave up drives to the basket in the first half. We typically do a better job of stopping that. To Ackley’s credit, they did a good job of attacking the basket and got some easy lay-ups against us and stayed in the basketball game with us.”

AGWSR kept the game close and bringing it back to single digits until a Latham basket and one of Kayden Ames’ three three-pointers created some separation with five minutes, 54 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Ames tallied 13 points.

“I like the way our kids played, they executed, made shots when they had to in order to keep Ackley from making a big run on us,” Schnoes said. “They are a nice ball club. They are strong, physical. The (Tanner) Weichers kid is a real handful down low and he’s hard to stop when he gets the ball. The Starr kid is just an all-around athlete, 15 (Jaden Penning) did a good job of driving to the basket and running the offense. It’s about what I expected. I knew it would be a hard-fought game and I’m glad we played well enough we could win.”

Jakob Washington finished with 15 points with an array of shots around the court and Brayden Vold did his damage inside with 11 points for West Fork (21-2).

“They did a great job of spreading the ball around,” Schipper said. “They’ve got 6-7-8 guys who can score. Tonight, they did a great job. They had four in double figures, and that is tough to defend. I think their season average is 70 and we kept them under that, we talked about if the game got above 60 it is going to be tough for us, but we went out fighting. We executed what we wanted and unfortunately, we ran out of gas at the end. We didn’t have a lot of legs left, jump shots were not falling.”

Weichers had one of his better games, though, tallying 16 points to compliment Starr’s output. The Cougars also got six each from Jaden Penning and Ben Macy.

AGWSR, which started the season 3-7 to start the season, went 6-4 to finish the year.

“We struggled early on this year, we didn’t take care of the ball very much. It was hard for us to really trust each other,” Schipper said. “Down the stretch, I think we really started to believe in each other and trust each other and we went on a four-game winning streak and unfortunately ran up against West Fork tonight and even in a loss, I think this is one of our better basketball games we played. Those guys fought, and fought, and fought. I couldn’t be happier from the way we started to the way we are now.

“I wish we could play another 10 games because I think we probably get eight or nine wins out of 10 games right now the way we are playing.”

Next for the Warhawks is Meskwaki, 62-53 winners over Grundy Center in the opening game on Tuesday. The Warriors won despite missing a lot of free throws down the stretch against the Spartans, missing 14 throughout.

“We’ll have a challenge,” Schnoes said of Meskwaki. “They like to press. We need to be able to handle their press and they are pretty quick. They are like Ackley, they like to drive to the basket and I think they are quicker than Ackley, so we’re going to really emphasize keeping their shooters on the perimeter and I think they shoot okay from the perimeter, as well, but they make a lot more lay-ups than they do other shots. We’ll really have to focus on keeping them out in front of us and out of the lane.

“They are a good test. It’s good to have a 1 and 2 make it to the district finals, they are the best two teams in the district this year, so it should be a fun game on Thursday.”

West Fork 67, AGWSR 52

AGWSR (9-14, final) –Jaden Penning 3-10 0-0 6, Ben Macy 2-3 1-3 6, Chase Harms 0-0 0-0 0, Keaton Penning 1-2 0-0 2, Luke Starr 7-22 2-2 18, Tanner Weichers 8-10 0-0 16, Titan Opperman 2-4 0-0 4. Totals 23-51 3-5 52.

West Fork (21-2)– Ian Latham 3-4 4-6 12, Brett Weaver 3-9 0-0 8, Kayden Ames 7-15 0-0 17, Colin Martinek 0-0 0-0 0, Jakob Washington 1-6 4-4 7, Ren Heimer 1-1 1-2 3, Cail Weaver 3-6 5-5 13, Brayden Vold 5-6 2-5 12. Totals 23-47 16-22 72.

AGWSR     15   17   11     9      -   52

W. Fork      24   16   10   15      -   67

Three-point goals – AGWSR 3-22 (Starr 2-12, Macy 1-2, Weichers 0-2, Opperman 0-2, J. Penning 0-4); WF 7-13 (Latham 4-4, Ames 3-5, B. Weaver 0-1, C. Weaver 0-1, Washington 0-2). Rebounds– AGWSR 28, 5 off., 23 def. (J. Penning 7, Weichers 7, Starr 6, Opperman 4, Macy 3, Harms); WF 28, 4 off., 24 def. (Washington 10, Latham 4, Vold 3, Ingham 3, B. Weaver 2, Ames 2, C. Weaver 2). Assists– AGWSR 10 (Starr 4, Macy 2, Weichers 2, Opperman 2); WF 18 (Latham 4, B. Weaver 4, Heimer 3, C. Weaver 3, Ames, Vold). Steals– AGWSR 2 (K. Penning, Opperman); WF 6 (Washington 3, Latham, Ames, C. Weaver). Blocks– AGWSR 3 (J. Penning, Macy, Starr); WF 2 (Washington, C. Weaver). Total fouls– AGWSR 11, WF 6.Fouled out – None.