Another Friday Night Upset Special for Linn-Mar girls

IOWA CITY - Just another Friday Night Upset for the Linn-Mar girls’ basketball team.

The Lions were balanced offensively, strong as heck defensively and beat Class 5A No. 6 Iowa City West, 49-39, Friday night at West.

A week ago, Linn-Mar gave 4A top-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier its first loss of the season. It did the exact same thing here to another opponent.

“We came in with a chip on our shoulder,” said Linn-Mar’s Zoe Kennedy. “We love to come into an environment where we’re the underdogs. We’ve just got that underdog mentality, and that gets us going.”

The game essentially was won in the second quarter, as Linn-Mar turned a 9-7 deficit into a 25-16 halftime lead.

Turnovers were key, as West had 12 of them in the first half and 20 overall. Linn-Mar did a good job in its person-to-person defense, shutting off driving lanes and helping, which led to many of the turnovers.

“I think we controlled the boards the majority of the game,” Kennedy said. “But defensively we really locked in. Really locked into what we wanted to do.”

Linn-Mar Coach Chad Tompkins was definitely pleased with what he saw. It was quite a rebound from a last-second loss Tuesday night to Cedar Rapids Prairie and a blowout loss this past Saturday to Pleasant Valley.

He said this was an effort-based thing, pointing to the very first possession of the game, in which his team had four offensive rebounds.

“If we can play like this every night, I’d be pretty happy,” he said. “We’ve talked about that as a team all year. Over 21, 22 games, you are going to have a lot of ups and downs. Our job is to try and stay in the middle as much as we can. Not get too high or too low.”

Kennedy led Linn-Mar (6-3) with 11 points, followed closely by Tessa Casebolt and Taylor Brunson with 10 each. West (5-1) got a game-high 12 points from Meena Tate, though just two of those came in the second half.

West was just 2 of 17 from 3-point range.

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AT IOWA CITY

LINN-MAR (49): Tessa Casebolt 4-6 2-2 10, Zoe Kennedy 4-10 1-2 11, Dreya Kern 2-9 0-0 6, Taylor Brunson 3-10 4-6 10, Ellie Daubenmier 2-5 5-8 9, Meredith Koenen 0-2 0-0 0, Emily Koranda 1-3 0-0 3, Lauren Haefner 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 16-45 12-19 49.

IOWA CITY WEST (39): Melae’ Lacy 3-9 2-4 8, Keiko Ono-Fullard 1-3 0-0 2, Anna Prouty 1-2 2-4 4, Meena Tate 6-16 0-0 12, Carolyn Pierce 3-7 0-0 7, Grace Fincham 1-7 1-1 3, Zola Gross 1-2 0-0 3, Elle Barnett 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 16-46 5-9 39.

Halftime – Linn-Mar 25, Iowa City West 16. 3-point goals – Linn-Mar 5-16 (Kennedy 2-6, Kern 2-6, Brunson 0-1, Koenen 0-1, Koranda 1-2), Iowa City West 2-17 (Lacy 0-4, Ono-Fullard 0-1, Tate 0-3, Pierce 1-5, Fincham 0-3, Gross 1-1). Rebounds – Linn-Mar 25 (Kennedy 9), Iowa City West 34 (Lacy 10). Total fouls – Linn-Mar 6, Iowa City West 13. Fouled out – None. Turnovers – Linn-Mar 8, Iowa City West 20.

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com