Johnston girls basketball returns to Iowa state championship game with easy win over Waukee
Johnston’s Aili Tanke stepped outside the 3-point line – just to the right of the top of the key – and let off a shot. It sank through the net with ease as Tanke jogged to the opposite end of the court.
Over the first two-and-a-half minutes of the second half, Tanke scored eight straight points. The Dragons’ defense backed up her scoring success, holding the Waukee girls basketball team without a field goal for over five minutes in the third quarter.
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Tanke’s scoring streak proved to be the final push Johnston (25-0) really needed to get past Waukee (19-5) in the Iowa high school state basketball Class 5A semifinal game.
The Dragons defeated the Warriors, 74-33.
Jenica Lewis led the game with 22 points and four steals. Tanke finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds.
Tanke’s eight-point run didn’t surprise Johnston coach Chad Jilek.
“She’s a 53% 3-point shooter, so she’s gonna make most of them,” Jilek said. “That first one in the third quarter was big for her. …She spends a lot of time coming and getting extra shots, working on her moves.”
With two players scoring over or near 20 points, Johnston’s defense did the rest. No one on Waukee’s roster scored more than six points.
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Jilek credited his team’s ability to contest 3-pointers as a large part of why the Warriors’ scoring was limited.
Thursday’s game started with some back-and-forth play that drained the time off the clock. Waukee took one timeout in the first quarter, and Johnston used one timeout late in the second.
Outside of those breaks, players only managed a bit of a breather during free throws.
“I think we like playing fast, so we played into our strengths,” Tanke said. “This is what we do in practice. We’re up and down against our scout team a lot, so we were prepared for that.”
Johnston handled the pace well, and one player who thrived was sophomore Jaliyah Kinnetz.
Early in the first quarter, she tapped the ball away from Waukee’s Maryne Szalo. Lewis collected the steal, dribbled downcourt and dished a behind-the-back pass to Tanke, who scored.
That basket capped an 11-0 run by the Dragons – after Waukee scored the first points of the game – and Kinnetz was the sparkplug on the play.
Kinnetz finished the game with nine points, six rebounds and two steals, and on defense, she often faced the Warriors’ top players.
"She’s probably our best drive, best finisher, around the basket,” Jilek said. “When she gets the ball, there’s not a lot of people that can stop her from getting to the basketball. In games like this, when she’s a little bit more aggressive, you can see that talent she has out there.”
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Johnston girls basketball beats Waukee, returns to Iowa state title game
