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Iowa high school girls’ state basketball scores: Thursday’s tournament roundup
Championship games are set in 5A, 4A and 3A
The 2023 Iowa high school girls’ state basketball semifinal round begins Thursday with six games at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Stay up to date with scores, stats and more coverage here throughout the day.
Girls’ state basketball coverage
» ‘It’s our county:’ Benton completes hat trick over Vinton-Shellsburg in 3A semifinal
» Solon’s comeback bid falls just short against Sioux Center in a 3A semifinal
» The evolution of Audi Crooks has been more mental than physical
» Updated brackets and schedules for all five classes
Thursday’s Class 4A girls’ state basketball scores
No. 2 North Polk 53, No. 3 Sioux City Heelan 41
North Polk (23-2) earned its third state finals appearance in the last five years and will seek its first title at 2:30 p.m. Saturday against Dallas Center-Grimes.
Sioux City Heelan (23-3) jumped out to an 11-2 lead, but the Comets responded with a 14-1 blitz to end the first quarter and never trailed again.
North Polk made 7 of 20 3-point attempts. Abby Tuttle banked in a deep trey at the second-quarter buzzer and MaKayla Boatman buried a corner 3 to end the third quarter. Tuttle totaled 20 points, Boatman 13. Brooklyn Stanley led the Crusaders with 13.
North Polk’s most-recent title game appearance was a 53-46 loss to Heelan in the 2020 Class 3A final.
No. 1 Dallas Center-Grimes 33, No. 4 Ballard 32
Emma Miner made the second of two free throws with 1.5 seconds left to send Dallas Center-Grimes (22-3) to its first girls’ state basketball title game.
A year after falling in a triple-overtime semifinal as the top seed, the Mustangs (22-3) avoided another extra session when Miner collected an inbound pass, drove and stepped through defenders into the lane to draw a foul.
Vanessa Bickford had seven points and 11 rebounds for DCG. It shut out the Bombers (19-4) in the first quarter, 12-0, but scored just three points in the fourth quarter. Ballard tied it on Alliyah Thompson’s putback with 13.8 seconds remaining.
Thursday’s Class 3A girls’ state basketball scores
No. 7 Sioux Center 46, No. 2 Solon 44
They had so much going against them.
A glaring first-half deficiency on the boards. A 15-point deficit. Their star player on the bench, disqualified due to fouls.
The Solon Spartans very nearly overcame all of it.
Second-ranked Solon scratched and clawed and pressed its way back, and had a shot to win it at the end, But Hilary Wilson’s 3-pointer rimmed out at the buzzer, and No. 6 Sioux Center left with a 46-44 Class 3A semifinal victory at the girls’ state basketball tournament Thursday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena.
“We never stopped fighting. We really wanted it,” Solon’s Hailey Miller said. “We believed in each other.”
» Read more from The Gazette’s Jeff Linder
No. 4 Benton Community 51, No. 10 Vinton-Shellsburg 42
With victory imminent, the Benton Community student section fashioned a chant:
“IT’S our COUN-ty.”
Win one more, and it’s their state, too.
Whistled for her fourth foul late in the third quarter, Jenna Twedt never picked up her fifth. Instead, she scored Benton Community’s final 10 points, and the fourth-ranked Bobcats pulled away late from No. 10 Vinton-Shellsburg, 51-42, in a Class 3A semifinal at the girls’ state basketball tournament Thursday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena.
“This has been our goal all along,” Benton’s McKenna Kramer said. “We wanted to play for a state championship, and now, we’ve got that chance.”
» Read more from The Gazette’s Jeff Linder
Thursday’s Class 5A girls’ state basketball scores
No. 1 Pleasant Valley 50, No. 4 West Des Moines Dowling 33
Top-ranked Pleasant Valley (25-0) ended the first half on a 10-0 run to take a 25-17 lead, then started the fourth quarter on another 10-0 spurt to pull away from West Des Moines Dowling (20-5).
The Spartans’ zone defense stifled the Maroons, who shot 28.6 percent and saw a 17-game win streak snapped.
Marquette commit Halle Vice scored a game-high 18 points for PV. Addy Maurer added 10.
Up next for the Spartans is their first state championship game, 6 p.m. Friday against Johnston, which beat PV in last year’s semifinals on its way to the title.
No. 2 Johnston 42, No. 6 Ankeny Centennial 35
Defending Class 5A champion Johnston advanced to the finals for the fourth straight year, seeking its third title in that span.
The second-ranked Dragons (24-1) overcame 27.9-percent shooting, grabbing 14 offensive rebounds and limiting the Jaguars to five.
Aaliyah Riley scored 13 points, including a driving layup with 32.1 seconds left to make it a five-point game. She also grabbed eight rebounds. Freshman Jenica Lewis led Johnston with 15 points. Leading scorer Aili Tanke (15.5 ppg) was held to six, but had 11 boards.
Jaeden Pratt tallied 10 points and seven rebounds for No. 6 Ankeny Centennial (18-7).
This was Johnston's third win over Centennial this season and they looked pretty similar, the previous two coming by scores of 46-40 and 66-59 in CIML games.
Benton's Emma Townsley (3) shoots during an IGHSAU Class 3A State Tournament Semifinal between Benton Community and Vinton-Shellsburg in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday, March 2, 2023. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)
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