HIGH SCHOOL

Iowa girls' state basketball: Johnston beats Cedar Falls to advance to Class 5A semifinals

Matthew Bain
Des Moines Register

Fresh off its first state title in program history last March, the young Johnston girls' basketball team took an important first step toward repeating, beating Cedar Falls 71-64 Monday in the Class 5A quarterfinals.

The second-seeded Dragons (17-1) will play No. 6 Iowa City West (14-3) Thursday at noon in the 5A semifinals.

Iowa-bound junior Jada Gyamfi led the way with a 19-point, 18-rebound double-double, and Aili Tanke added 17 points and seven boards of her own. As they have all year for Johnston, young players came up huge. Tanke is a freshman. Aaliyah Riley, another freshman, scored 11 and Molly Noelck, a sophomore, chipped in nine.

Johnston's Jada Gyamfi shoots the ball during the Girls State Basketball Tournament Class 5A quarterfinal between Johnston and Cedar Falls, on Monday, March 1, 2021, at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

"I knew after last year that we had young talent coming in," Dragons head coach Chad Jilek said. "I didn't expect maybe them to gel as easily as they did. I was expecting that, by the end of the season, we'd be a pretty good team. I wasn't expecting that we were going to start that way for the whole year. So, from that point, we've just kept getting better and better."

More:How to watch and follow the 2021 Iowa high school girls' basketball state tournament

Johnston led for the vast majority of the game. It was up 32-24 at halftime and 54-41 after three quarters. Led by Gyamfi's efforts near the basket, Johnston dominated seventh-seeded Cedar Falls 44-14 in points scored in the paint. The Dragons' bench also was clutch, scoring 22 points compared to three from the Tigers' bench.

Class 5A quarterfinals coverage

The one ugly spot? Turnovers. Johnston committed 20 of them, which Cedar Falls (17-4) turned into 26 points.

"We've got weapons. We've got shooters. We've got inside play," Jilek said. "We've got good point guard play. So everyone has just gelled quickly."

Anaya Barney led Cedar Falls with 24 points. Sydney Remmert added 12 points, and Sarah Albaugh and Jasmine Barney each chipped in 11.

More:The top prospects competing at the 2021 Iowa high school girls basketball state tournament

Matthew Bain covers recruiting and pretty much anything else under the sports sun for the Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Network.  Contact him at mbain@dmreg.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewBain_.