Iowa City West’s title run comes to an end

DES MOINES - Their coach was his usual blase self when asked about it. But Iowa City West's players weren't shy to lament the end of a historical basketball run.

Losing hurts, especially when you're not used to experiencing it.

'No fun. No fun at all,” West's Tanner Lohaus said, after his team was knocked off its championship perch Friday afternoon in the Class 4A semifinals by North Scott, 57-51. 'Obviously you want to keep it going. This really sucks, I'm not going to lie.”

Salute the Trojans for what they accomplished these past four seasons: a 60-game win streak, another 30-gamer and, of course, three straight titles, something no other big school ever has done.

Now salute North Scott for putting together a game that ended those last two things. The Lancers (22-3) never trailed, taking a 4-2 lead and keeping it the rest of the way.

They'll play Pleasant Valley for the third time this season in Saturday night's championship game, an all Mississippi Athletic Conference affair.

'Yes, it's a great accomplishment,” said North Scott's Cortez Seales. 'But like I've said earlier in previous interviews, we came here with one goal. That wasn't to beat the defending state champions. It was to win state.”

'What you tell (his players) is that over the course of the season, we were very, very good,” West Coach Steve Bergman said. 'We won 24 games in a row, we just didn't win today. Today they were the better team. All the credit goes to them. It doesn't really make a reflection on how good we were all season.”

North Scott has two great players in the 6-foot-4 Seales and point guard Marlon Stewart, and they accounted for 43 of their team's points. The game plan offensively was to spread the floor and have one of those two either take it to the rim or shoot it from 3.

West (24-1) did a better job defending that strategy in the second half by running a second defender at them whenever they touched the ball. But by then the damage had been done.

North Scott led after a quarter by nine points and at halftime by six.

'I felt like we had a decent game plan (defensively) going in to try and slow them down,” said West's David DiLeo. 'We just didn't execute that. We didn't do early what we said we were going to do and dug ourselves a hole. We fought our way back. It was just hard to get over that hump when you dig yourself a hole that early.”

On the flip side, West's offense never was consistent enough, with North Scott stringently guarding DiLeo and Connor McCaffery and sagging the rest of its defenders toward the middle. Neither DiLeo or McCaffery, who averaged a combined 29 points a game, had a field goal, with all seven of their points (DiLeo three and McCaffery 4) coming in the final 4:11 and from the free-throw line.

'They were just being physical and denying us the ball on the perimeter, for the most part,” DiLeo said. 'We had things to counter that, but we just didn't execute that well. We started going one on one and really didn't run our offense.”

'We were just out of sorts,” said Bergman, whose team shot just 42.1 percent from the field. 'The first quarter, we settled a lot for mid-ranged jump shots. I thought maybe we could keep running our stuff, and get better shots. But we're young. It showed up in the first round (a nine-point win over Sioux City North), and it showed up today.”

West did get within two points in the opening minute of the fourth quarter but no closer. Missed free throws and turnovers late bamboozled any comeback attempt.

'We had to stay focused and stick to the game plan,” said Stewart, a Creighton signee who had a game-high 23 points.

So for the second time in five years West is relegated to Saturday afternoon's 4A consolation game, against Des Moines Hoover. Bergman's 500th career coaching win will have to wait, as will West's next title run.

Considering DiLeo is the only senior on the Trojans' roster, it's quite possible there will be another title run. West is 118-10 the past five seasons.

'It was amazing,” DiLeo said. 'My freshman year, practicing, not dressing, but watching them win that first state championship. Then these last two ... All good runs are going to end eventually. Credit North Scott, they are a really good team. Wish the best of luck to them.”

'People didn't pick us to win last year, but we figured out a way to win,” Bergman said. 'Just like they figured out a way to win today. The streak is what it is. I don't spend five seconds thinking about that stuff.”

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