Familiar feeling: Cascade derails D-NH girls

By: 
Jake Ryder

DES MOINES – Bruce Dall felt some déjà vu on Tuesday night.
  
The Dike-New Hartford girls basketball team couldn't get the shots to keep up against Cascade's zone early on, and a Wolverine rally gave way to missed opportunities that put the defending Class 2A champions back in control of a 52-43 win over D-NH in a 2A state quarterfinal at Wells Fargo Arena.
  
The Wolverines' end with a 20-3 record, another strong season ended in the opening round of the state tournament for the second-consecutive season by the aggressive, but fundamentally sound, Cougars.
  
"We played hard, the effort was there," said Dall, D-NH's head coach. "I can't definitively say we did anything better than last year against them. We missed some free throws early, didn't identify shooters, got back into the game like we did last year, they pulled away. … Really came out the same as last year."
  
Ellie Foster led all scorers with 20 points, Morgan Weber added 14 points and Katie Knock scored 8 as D-NH's leading scorers. All three players return next year.
  
D-NH averaged 29.8 percent from the floor on Tuesday. The Wolverines whittled a 33-20 halftime deficit down to 37-34 midway through the third quarter, but missed multiple opportunities to tie the game and two turnovers late in the quarter led to Cascade buckets and a 43-34 disadvantage at the end of three quarters.
  
"It was kind of a struggle at the end there," Weber said. "We wanted to break down their 2-3 zone and try to get to the lane, drive, kick it out if there were open shooters, but we didn't have shots falling for us."
  
Sophia Hoffmann's jumper with 1:28 left in the game got D-NH within 48-43 but Cascade took care of business at the free-throw line with four consecutive made free throws. The Cougars made 19-of-31 free-throw attempts, drawing 20 total fouls from the Wolverines. D-NH made just seven of 14 free-throw attempts on 10 Cascade fouls.
 
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