Class 4A Iowa Girls State Basketball Tournament
Dallas Center-Grimes 57, Glenwood 39
Even without a big game from season scoring leader Emma Miner, Dallas Center-Grimes has plenty of options.
That showed as the top-seeded Mustangs opened the Class 4A tournament with a 57-39 victory over Glenwood, sending the winners into the semifinals for the third straight year.
Miner, averaging 15.3 points, did not take a shot until scoring on a putback midway through the second quarter and finished with nine points to go with seven rebounds. But the Mustangs found plenty of scoring elsewhere.
Finley Fitzgerald led with 17 points, Jose Lampe went 3-for-5 from 3-point range in scoring 12 points and Vanessa Bickford added 10. Bickford and Lampe each grabbed eight rebounds and Bickford handed out four assists.
Jenna Hopp, playing her final high school game, led Glenwood with an 11-point, 14-rebound double-double. She’ll play at South Dakota State next season. Kate Hughes also scored 11 for the Rams and Danika Arnold scored eight on 4-for-5 shooting.
Glenwood clawed its way back into it after Dallas Center-Grimes raced to an 8-0 lead, tying the game at 12 on Hopp’s layup in the first minute of the second quarter. Aubrey Johnansen answered with a 3-pointer for Dallas Center-Grimes, triggering an 11-0 run that put the Mustangs ahead to stay.
They led 27-17 at halftime, then hit seven of their first 10 shots of the second half in a 15-2 run that stretched the lead to 42-19. The lead grew to 24 less than 2 minutes later and Glenwood never got closer than 16 the rest of the way.
The victory was 14th in the last 15 games for Dallas Center-Grimes, which will take a 21-3 record into a semifinal game at 5 p.m. Thursday. The Mustangs lost to the eventual state champions in each of the past two semifinal rounds, falling to Ballard in 2021 and Cedar Rapids Xavier in a three-overtime thriller last year.
Glenwood, which reached the state tournament for the fourth straight year, finishes with a 16-9 record.