Warhawks play with heavy hearts, fall to third-place game

DES MOINES – Already playing with heavy hearts since the sudden passing of Edison Caspers’ father, Ed, on Tuesday, the West Fork boys’ basketball team lost in the Class 1A state semifinal 66-52 to Algona Garrigan on Wednesday, March 11 at Wells Fargo Arena.

All members of the West Fork team were wearing black WF T-shirts with ‘Caspers’ on their backs during warm-ups.

“Playing this game, obviously everyone is upset,” senior guard Ian Latham said. “Everyone wants to make it to the championship game, but there is so many more things that are bigger than basketball. You know? It’s just a blessing to be able to have this opportunity to be able to play the game that we love and to play it on the biggest stage in Iowa. It truly doesn’t get any better than that. Our hearts go out to the whole Caspers family. I can’t even imagine losing a father like that.

“The support is tremendous. I can’t speak enough to how much support we’ve been trying to give them. I can’t even imagine going through that.”

Junior Jakob Washington, who led the Warhawks with 17 points, added, “I have to say my hat is off to him. He came to practice yesterday after he found out about it. He came today, his sister (Emily) came and I don’t know about his mother, I assume, but...I keep thinking about what they are going through right now at this time, during state. It really breaks my heart. I just talked to him (Ed) after the last game.”

When Caspers entered the game, Garrigan intentionally called a timeout and he scored a basket out of the timeout.

“He (Edison) is a very strong kid to go out there and score that basket,” Washington said. “It was huge for him, he’ll never forget it. You can tell by all the fans, even when we were down, they all stood up and started clapping. Everyone is there for him and he knows that, we’ve been trying to be there for him with the shirts and all.”

Head coach Frank Schnoes called the situation a tough thing.

“We just found out about it (Tuesday) afternoon right before practice,” Schnoes said. “I told Edison it’s pretty courageous to show up, I didn’t expect him to, but he wanted to come down and he did. I admire him for doing that, I don’t know if I could have done it under similar circumstances. The kids are pretty resilient, though, and it starts putting things in perspective, it’s a big game, but in the scheme of things, it’s just a basketball game. A son loses his dad, he was up in the stands on Monday, cheering him on. I talked to him after the game. You just have to appreciate the time you have with him and being a sophomore in high school, that has to be tough for him.

“He has a pretty good family, a good support group and I think our kids, basketball players, will look out for him and try to help him out any way they can.”

The loss set the Warhawks to play in Thursday’s consolation game against Montezuma, which lost 57-42 to Wapsie Valley.

“I wanted this more than I can even explain and it really sucks,” Washington said, “but we played really hard and that’s all you can ask; our shots weren’t falling, didn’t go down.”

Junior 6-foot-9 post Angelo Winkel finished with a double-double against the Warhawks with 15 points and 16 rebounds, adding five blocked shots.

“The bottom line is their size bothered us more than we expected it to,” Schnoes said. “We had a tough time taking it at him (Angelo) Winkel and that was our goal. I think we played a little soft when we had the ball, and were a little intimidated by him.”

Nonetheless, West Fork senior post Brayden Vold scored 12 points, 10 in the first half.

“I don’t really back down from the competition,” Vold said. “If you shy away, you’re bound to lose that way if you don’t at least put up a fight.”

It was an off-shooting game for Kayden Ames, who finished with just six points, well below his season average of 14 per game.

“We started missing some shots and Kayden wasn’t hitting from the outside, so they could play in front of Brayden and took him away (in the second half),” Schnoes said. “We needed to hit some baseline shots to open some things up and we just couldn’t hit them tonight.

“Brett did a good job of dribble penetration, but couldn’t finish his floaters down the lane. He had three in a row and he usually makes some of those. Tough scoring night. Rebound-wise, they out-rebounded us, but we shot so poorly that if we had shot better, it would have been a draw.”

Vold said that after all the community had been through, he tried to stay focused on the game.

“He (Ed Caspers) would want us out there playing,” Vold said.

Algona Garrigan 66

West Fork 52

West Fork (24-3) — Ian Latham 3-10 1-1 8, Brett Weaver 1-5 0-0 3, Kayden Ames 2-9 0-0 6, Jakob Washington 6-12 5-8 17, Edison Caspers 1-1 0-0 2, Cail Weaver 0-3 0-0 0, Brayden Vold 6-9 0-0 12, Joe Ingham 2-3 0-0 4. Totals 21-52 6-9 52.

Algona Garrigan (24-2) — Cade Winkel 6-7 1-1 13, Andrew Arndorfer 2-2 0-1 5, John Joyce 5-15 6-6 17, Cameron Baade 2-4 0-0 6, Kyle Schaaf 0-1 3-3 3, Marcus Plathe 3-6 0-1 6, Angelo Winkel 7-11 1-2 16. Totals 25-46 11-14 66.

W. Fork      15   12   14   11      -   52

Garrigan    19   10   18   19      -   66

Three-point goals — WF 4-20 (B. Weaver 1-2, Latham 1-6, Ames 2-9, Washington 0-1, C. Weaver 0-2); AG 5-12 (Baade 2-4, Arndorfer 1-1, A. Winkel 1-2, Joyce 1-5); Rebounds — WF 21, 5 off., 16 def. (Washington 11, Ingham 4, Vold 3, Ames 2, Latham); AG 33, 9 off., 24 def. (A. Winkel 15, Plathe 7, C. Winkel 3, Joyce 3, Arndorfer 2, Schaaf 2, Baade); Assists — WF 12 (Latham 3, B. Weaver 3, Washington 2, Vold 2, Caspers, C. Weaver); AG 14 (C. Winkel 4, Joyce 4, Schaaf 2, Plathe 2, Arndorfer, Baade). Steals — WF 4 (Washington 2, Vold 2); AG 6 (A. Winkel 5, C. Winkel). Total fouls — WF 16, AG 13. Fouled out — None.