Iowa City West claws its way to 51-48 quarterfinal win over Des Moines Hoover

DES MOINES — This wasn't exciting in a run-and-gun, up-and-down way. But then you realistically couldn't have expected it to be.

All that matters is Iowa City West is moving on to the Class 4A state basketball tournament semifinals for a sixth straight year. That'll have to suffice from an excitement standpoint.

The Trojans built a 10-point halftime lead, received a clutch game offensively from Devontae Lane and battled past Des Moines Hoover, 51-48, in a quarterfinal slugfest at Wells Fargo Arena. It's Mississippi Valley Conference mates West and Cedar Falls in Friday afternoon's 3:15 semis.

Both are 20-4. West won the regular-season encounter by 12 points.

'Happy to win,' West Coach Steve Bergman said. 'We talked last week that you've got to win your first game in order to play three here. I'm real proud that this is the sixth straight season that we're going to play on the last day of the season. We've got to play better than we played tonight. But a lot of that was Hoover.'

Lane, the junior guard, finished with 24 points, the only West player to score double figures. He particularly came up large at the end of the second, third and fourth quarters.

Just before halftime, his steal and layup gave West a 28-18 lead. A corner 3-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer put the Trojans up 33-24.

Then a baseline drive led to a conventional three-point play with 1:03 left to officially curb a Hoover rally. The Huskies (21-3) had crawled within four points down the stretch.

'Coach always tells me to stop going for steals and run back on defense,' Lane said. 'But I have a hard time listening sometimes, and we go back and forth on the court. I guess you could say it was just in the flow of the game (what he did). I picked the right spots to do things, I guess.'

The Trojans shot just 35 percent against Hoover's aggressive man-to-man defense. They had several protracted possessions, especially in the second half, which didn't make Bergman happy.

'We talked about it every day,' he said. 'When we have a long possession, we are not executing our offense. There wasn't a lot of screening or cutting going on. They did a good job of scouting. Some of our set plays worked, a lot of them didn't.'

The Huskies (21-3) are known for a scratch-and-claw approach, playing games of 46-33 and 31-24 in the substate tournament, so the scoreboard was unlikely to be lit up. Yet it was, relatively, in the first quarter, as West led, 16-12, getting seven points from Lane and six from Connor McCaffery.

McCaffery injured his ankle in West's substate final win over Iowa City High and did not practice leading up to this game.

'It's not where I want it to be,' he said.

Hoover made six of its first 11 shots from the field and held three leads early, but went 4:54 without a point late in the first and early in the second, thanks in part to a 1-3-1 zone defense employed by West. Bergman is known for his team's strong man principles, but this is the postseason, and you've got to do what you've got to do.

West played a lot of 1-3-1 in the City High substate game.

'Just proud of the fact that we played well enough to win tonight,' Bergman said.

AT DES MOINES

IOWA CITY WEST (51): Wali Parks 2-5 4-7 8, Tanner Lohaus 1-3 4-4 6, Alex Henderson 0-2 4-5 4, Devontae Lane 8-17 6-7 24, Connor McCaffery 3-11 2-5 9, Patrick McCaffery 0-2 0-0 0, Nate Barnes 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 14-40 20-28 51.

DES MOINES HOOVER (48): Aldreias Campbell Jr. 6-8 0-0 15, Nate Lee 3-6 0-0 6, Douglas Wilson 4-7 3-6 11, Kenny Quinn 1-2 0-0 2, Y'Vez Quinn 6-12 2-3 14, Hosea Treadwell 0-3 0-0 0, Devonte Thedford 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 20-39 5-9 48.

Halftime – West 16, Hoover 12. 3-point goals – West 3-9 (Henderson 0-1, Lane 2-4, C. McCaffery 1-3, P. McCaffery 0-1), Hoover 3-10 (Y. Quinn 0-2, Campbell 3-5, Treadwell 0-3). Rebounds – West 27 (C. McCaffery, Parks 6), Hoover 25 (Lee 7). Total fouls – West 10, Hoover 24. Fouled out – Lee, Wilson. Turnovers – West 7, Hoover 11.

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