DES MOINES, Iowa — Outsized but not outplayed, Treynor sliced and diced its way into the Class 2A semifinals.
The sixth-seeded Cardinals drove through and past their Central Lyon defenders for a slew of layups and beat the Lions 62-50 for the program’s first state tournament victory since winning it all in 2019.
Treynor won for the 22nd time in 24 games and will play second-seeded Rock Valley at 11:45 a.m. in a showdown of schools with multiple state championships. Treynor also won a title in 1994, while Rock Valley (23-2) won three in a row from 2001-03. Rock Valley advanced with a 43-31 win over Iowa City Regina Catholic for its first state tournament victory since that 2003 championship.
Nora Konz, a 5-foot-7 senior, led Treynor’s layup drill with 20 points, Addison Mauer added 18 and 5-4 Claire Schrage scored 14. Mauer and Schrage both went 7-for-11 from the field and Mauer was 9-for-17. Almost all of those baskets were layups as Cardinals amassed a 48-26 advantage in points in the paint.
Treynor shot 51 percent overall and connected at a 57 percent clip inside the 3-point arc.
Ayda Vander Zee’s 14 points led third-seeded Central Lyon (19-5), the state runner-up a year ago. Shyanne Struckman, Danika Hoogendoorn and Ellianna Hoefert each scored 10 for the Lions, who shot only 32 percent and never got a handle on cutting off Treynor’s lanes to the basket.
Central Lyon asserted itself early in building a 15-5 lead and the two teams played through an entertaining stretch in the second quarter when the lead changed hands seven times. Treynor got back in it by scoring eight of the first 10 points in the second quarter and went ahead to stay at 31-28 on consecutive layups by Konz and Schrage, with Schrage’s coming on a perfectly timed backdoor cut to the hoop.
The Cardinals led 37-32 at halftime after shooting 71 percent in the second quarter, then really turned it on after the break, slicing through the lane for one layup after another. On one occasion, Schrage emerged from a crowd with a rebound and drove the length of the court for a layup that stretched the lead to 52-39 late in the third quarter.
Treynor led by as many as 16 late and after Kong hit a 3-pointer early in the third quarter, the Cardinals’ final nine baskets were layups.
