Girls' state basketball: Top-seeded Waukee topples Ankeny Centennial to reach Class 5A final

Thursday's 10 a.m. wakeup call at Wells Fargo Arena featured one girls' basketball team sporting a No. 1 seed and another simply riding the postseason wave. Waukee has been shouldering championship expectations since November. Ankeny Centennial needed two double-digit comebacks and a fortuitous whistle (or lack thereof) just to get to the state semifinals.  

Those facts mattered little once the action tipped. 

The Warriors and Jaguars went at it like two teams that know each other well. Even with a title-game berth at stake, the action was often grueling and sluggish, with few moments of offensive brilliance. That did nothing to dampen the suspense between these two CIML foes. 

Waukee did the celebrating at game's end.   

The top-seeded Warriors emerged with a 50-29 win over No. 5 seed Ankeny Centennial to advance to Friday's Class 5A title game, where Waukee will get No. 2 Johnston at 7 p.m. The lopsided final ledger didn't do this game justice. 

"We stuck with it and just gave it our all," Waukee senior guard Katie Dinnebier said. "We left it all out on the court today." 

Waukee's win didn't begin as an offensive grind but a tone-setting second quarter quickly flipped the flow. The Warriors held Ankeny Centennial without a field goal for more than six minutes and surrendered only five second-quarter points, resulting in a 28-18 intermission lead. Waukee's defense wasn't going anywhere, either. 

Even as the Warriors struggled to pull away — they, too, sputtered offensively with only one third-quarter field goal — Ankeny Centennial had trouble mustering much of a threat. The Jaguars finished at 31% from the field and 24% from deep, scoring just 16 points over the final 24 minutes. 

"We got off to the best start we've had in a while, but Waukee is Waukee," Ankeny Centennial coach Scott DeJong said. "They just kept going at their pace, and we just weren't able to.

"I thought defensively, we were really good. But we'd finally make a big three, and they'd come right back and hit a shot. We could never really get any momentum going. They've just got an outstanding team, a lot of weapons, very well-coached." 

The battle of Drake signees eventually swung Waukee's way as well. Although Maggie Phipps was scorching early with eight points in the first quarter, Dinnebier delivered an emphatic close en route to a game-high 20 points.

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The Waukee guard didn't hit her first field goal until deep into the second quarter, but Dinnebier rebounded with two treys and 11 points after halftime to go with a 10-for-12 showing at the line. Phipps, meanwhile, didn't score after the second quarter's 6:43 mark.                  

"She’s a tremendous player — and it was a tough decision. Do you focus on her inside game or try not to get beat outside?" Waukee coach Chris Guess said. "We knew we had to stop her and also somehow contain the post game. We started off man-to-man and switched things up on her too. It seemed to be successful today."

Waukee hopes to spill its postseason success into Friday, when it gets another shot at capturing the 5A crown. The Warriors felt short in the title game a season ago. No one wants to absorb that pain again. 

"It's great to be back," Dinnebier said. "We have a chip on our shoulder from last year, and we're here to win. That's what we want to do. We're all ready to go."   

Dargan Southard covers Iowa and UNI athletics, recruiting and preps for the Des Moines Register, HawkCentral.com and the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.