T-R GRAPHIC

STATE CENTER — Before qualifying for its first state tournament in seven years, the West Marshall girls basketball team had to find its identity.

In the previous season the Trojans were a top-15 offense in Class 3A averaging 61.8 points per game, including the eighth-most 3-pointers made in the class. That offense was led by then-senior Isabelle Gradwell, who was second in 3A in points scored and tied for first in points per game at 21.8.

With nearly 22 points per game now gone and graduated, the West Marshall girls were left to figure out how else to win games, and for the first six games of the year that was a struggle.

The Trojans started the year at 2-4, with losses to then-ranked Colo-NESCO, Iowa Falls-Alden, Grundy Center and Aplington-Parkersburg. Something clicked after that, however, and West Marshall finished the rest of the season 12-3, with its last win serving as a little revenge against the Cadets in the regional final to get to state.

Trojan head coach Fred Zeller said the early stretch might not have looked pretty, but it was a crucial time for his girls to figure out how to play together.

“We started the season 2-4 but our losses were against teams that were ranked pretty high in 1A, 2A and 3A, so we kind of picked it up from there,” Zeller said. “We lost 50 percent of our scoring from last year so we had to figure it out a little bit better than we did early in the season. I think down the stretch we finally figured it out that we have to be balanced, we have to be together. Our T-shirts say ‘Together, we did it’ and I think that’s how we got it done.”

The most important position to fill was that of the leading scorer, as Gradwell hadn’t just led the team last season, she was the team’s leader in average for two years. While she hasn’t been as much of a scorer as Gradwell, senior Kayla Cripps has taken over as the leading scorer and floor general, and Zeller said Cripps’ development has been fun to watch.

“She probably had to change her role more than anybody else. She didn’t play much as a freshman but she lettered, then her sophomore and junior year she was a role player and played it just right,” Zeller said. “She was a good defensive player, good rebounder, good passer, good driver; but this year she kind of had to step up her offensive production. She hasn’t shot a lot of outside shots but she’s taken control of the game a couple of times and distributes the ball pretty well. She’s a pretty good ball handler, but it was tough to find somebody to come in and score points.”

Cripps, who has averaged 12.2 points per game this year and leads the team with 65 steals, said it took her a while to get used to being the top scoring option.

“The journey was trying to figure out how to play without Izzy and becoming a new team and having new responsibilities,” she said. “Last year was just defense for me, that’s all I was worried about. On offense it was just, ‘pass it to Isabelle, she’s going to make it.’ This year you’ve got to do something yourself to make it happen.”

Junior Karlyn Snider was the second-leading scorer on the team a year ago as a sophomore, but this season her scoring punch hasn’t been as powerful. Her 3-pointers specifically haven’t found their mark as well, since she had 42 threes a season ago on 28.2 percent shooting, but this year she’s got 29 threes to her name on 20.1 percent shooting.

Not hitting her shots has been frustrating, Snider said, but she’s found other ways to get involved.

“I just had to keep putting in my head positivity and find other ways to help people out, not think of the points on the board all the time,” she said.

Snider leads the team in assists with 68 this season, and she is just behind Cripps in steals with 64.

“I love assisting, I am kind of proud that I can see the floor and I can make passes and get it done without having to score all those points,” she said.

Zeller said he’s proud of how Snider has developed as a player even if she hasn’t been as much of a scorer.

“She’s making way better decisions with the ball than she has ever,” Zeller said of Snider. “She’s not shooting the three like she would like to or like we’d have her do, but she’s figured out there’s other ways to contribute and she’s done a good job of finding our post people and setting up Kayla and Avril. She’s improved her game quite a bit this year.”

While Cripps and Snider were the known commodities in the back court, the emergence of Avril Sinning as a sharpshooter behind the 3-point line has been key to how the Trojans have ended the season on a 12-3 run.

Against BCLUW on Dec. 18, Sinning went for a then-season high 12 points. Over the next 13 games Sinning regularly finished in double figures, and she averaged 9.3 points per game over the final 14 contests.

“She played quite a bit last year but wasn’t necessarily an offensive threat,” Zeller said. “Maybe it was the BCLUW game where she figured out, ‘hey, I might as well be shooting them because I feel it.’ She has had some games that she looks like an all-state 3-point shooter, but she is also a good driver, good defender and she’s rebounded for us too. She has been one of our most improved players also.”

Sinning, who leads the team in 3-pointers made with 32 and 3-point percentage with 32.7 percent, said she had no intentions of being mentioned as an important scorer this year.

“I didn’t think I’d contributing with points,” she said. “I knew I would have to play good defense and pass the ball, but lately I’ve been scoring more and I never would have seen that at the beginning of the year.”

The combination of those three guards got the Trojans through a lot of games, particularly earlier in the season. Sinning said they all share a great bond, which is part of why they mesh together so well.

“We’ve all been playing together since we were little, at least Karlyn and I, and putting Kayla in, she’s just like us so she has the same mindset,” she said. “We all know that we can trust each other with the ball and we can pass it there and we all know we will make good decisions with the ball.”

Snider said she and Cripps specifically work together great on defense, as they are the second-most prolific stealing duo in the 3A tournament field with 129 combined takeaways.

“It’s definitely not as much work and I don’t get as tired as I would if I was all by myself,” Snider said. “I like her out there because she can jump higher than I can and is a little bit faster, so it’s a little easier on me.”

The guards were a big factor in the turnaround from the 2-4 start, but Zeller said if it wasn’t for the effort from his bigs down the stretch they probably aren’t in the state tournament today.

“That’s the difference between our tournament run and earlier in the season,” he said. “I think it started with the Dike-New Hartford game, we played really well against that Dike team and, though we lost by 12 or 15 points, we stayed in the game with them and they are a similar team as far as personnel, they have four or five kids that are 5-10, 5-11 or 6-1. I think that kind of gave us a good start into this tournament, and that’s carried over. Our kids have done a good job of being a little more balanced as far as inside-outside.”

Junior Teresa Disney was the leading scorer during the regional tournament with 34 points across all three games, including a career-high 17 in the semifinals against Benton Community.

Disney, who averaged 6.4 points per game this season, said she didn’t score the ball well to start the year, but as the season has gone on she’s been more comfortable.

“I try not to think about that,” she said of her early-season shooting woes. “I just had to keep telling myself that I had to keep helping the team and everything, and it helps that my teammates helped build me up.”

Zeller said watching Disney come up big time and time again during the regional playoffs was great to finally see.

“I think it was huge, not in just the regional final but the semifinal and the first round,” Zeller said. “I think she’s gained a lot of confidence these last four or five games and our kids have kind of come together and figured out we have to be balanced. I am hoping that confidence will carry us into this first-round game and maybe beyond.”

Another girl who slowly built confidence this season was senior Grace Girard. Coming into the year, of the six major rotation players Girard had by far the least varsity experience. That didn’t stop her from contributing on the court, however, as she has been especially good on the glass.

Girard has averaged 7.7 rebounds a game this season, second only to Disney’ 8.0, and during the regional tournament she had a whopping 37 total rebounds across three games.

She said what helped her acclimate to her extra minutes was focusing on what she can do to help the team win.

“For me, a lot of it is Zeller talks about knowing your role,” she said. “I’m not our best scorer by far, I don’t come into games thinking I’m going to score 10, 12 points most of the time, so for me it’s about knowing my role and how can I contribute best to my team.”

Zeller said that Girard, along with Sinning, might be in the running for most improved player on the team this year.

“She didn’t play much last year, she isn’t a big offensive threat but she fits into our offense and is very unselfish, doesn’t try to do things she’s not good at,” he said. “Both defensively and rebounding, she seems to be in the right place most of the time. She and Teresa have really turned into a nice one-two punch in rebounding.”

Rounding out that front-court rotation is Renae Schaper, who comes off the bench as the primary sub for the Trojans. Schaper has averaged 4 points a game and hauled in 85 total rebounds this year, and Zeller said her contributions are more than what shows up on the scoreboard.

“We’re not a team that has a lot of depth at our guards, but they are little and quick and can usually play the whole game,” he said. “I think Teresa has had to play a lot more minutes than we’d like her to, Grace has been in foul trouble a couple of times but Renae came and stepped up in the regional final game and had some great passes too, not just scoring. She and Teresa were working together really well, and I think that’s a bonus going into this first game.”

Due to her role as a sub, Schaper has to be more flexible at filling the position they need her to be when she comes in, and she said it’s helpful that she has experience playing with both Girard and Disney in the front court.

“Teresa and I have been playing together for a long time and we’ve always been like the dynamic duo,” she said. “Then Grace and I started getting a connection because Teresa was playing varsity our freshman year and Grace and I were JV. That just really evolved this season in our chemistry in the post area.”

Where a lot of that chemistry comes from, both in the position groups and among the entire team, Girard said is from the way the girls communicate.

“We need to be able to read each other’s eyes, see where passes are coming from,” she said. “We need to be able to get those transition baskets, communication is our biggest thing we have been working on because that’s going to help us translate into points.”

No matter how the first round matchup against Center Point-Urbana goes, this will be the last week that both Girard and Cripps play for the Trojans on the court. Cripps said there are worse ways to go out.

“I’m OK with my last game being played at The Well,” she said.

Girard is just proud to be where no team since the 2012 Trojans has reached for West Marshall, but she doesn’t want it to seem like this was a flash in the pan.

“I just want to make a good impression, you know? We haven’t been to state since 2012, I don’t want to come in here and be one of the lowest seeded teams and people think, ‘oh, they’re not very good, they shouldn’t be here,'” she said. “I want people to see we deserve to be here as much as every other team. I’m glad to represent our school again at the state level, it’s really exciting and it’s going to be really fun I think.”

West Marshall and Center Point-Urbana meet in the first round of the 3A Iowa High School Girls State Basketball Tournament at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines this morning, starting at 10 a.m.

Iowa High School Girls State Basketball Tournament

At Wells Fargo Arena, Des Moines

CLASS 3A

Quarterfinals

Monday, Feb. 25

North Polk 59, Estherville-Lincoln Central 47

Waukon 48, Crestwood 37

Des Moines Christian 49, Roland-Story 41

Tuesday, Feb. 26

No. 2 Center Point-Urbana vs. No. 7 West Marshall (14-7), 10 a.m.

Semifinals

Thursday, Feb. 28

No. 1 North Polk (22-2) vs. No. 5 Waukon (19-3), 1:30 p.m.

No. 3 Des Moines Christian (23-2) vs. No. 2 Center Point-Urbana or No. 7 West Marshall, 3:15 p.m.

Championship

Friday, March 1

Semifinal winners, 8 p.m.