The Ames girls’ basketball team completed the season sweep of Marshalltown on Tuesday night at the Roundhouse, running away with a 54-13 triumph in CIML Iowa Conference play.

It was a far cry from the 81-11 loss that Marshalltown suffered on Dec. 17, 2020, in Ames, which was essentially the Bobcats’ main goal.

“They’ve got two really prolific scorers and our goal was to make them work for their shots and to really try to elongate possessions, really force them to work for any shot that they got,” Marshalltown head coach Brian Murphy said. “On the defensive end I thought we accomplished that goal mostly in the first quarter at times, but you could tell that we wore down both physically and mentally, and one that happens they steamroll.

“We wanted to make them battle for it physically and I thought we did that in spurts.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

It was as much as Marshalltown (0-9, 0-4) could hope for against a team it lost to by 70 the first time through. The Bobcats held the briefest of leads to start the game, as Sophie Younkin swished a 3-pointer 10 seconds into the contest, only to have Ireland Buss pull the Little Cyclones (5-3, 3-1) back to even with her own triple 20 seconds later. Another Buss trifecta 30 seconds later gave Ames the lead for good.

The Little Cyclones outscored MHS 24-7 in the first quarter, 14-2 in the second and 14-0 in the third. With the running clock mercy rule in effect in the second half, Marshalltown outscored Ames 4-2 in the closing stanza.

Caroline Waite, a Bradley University commit, led all scorers with 20 points for Ames. Buss added 12 points and Kennedy White had 11 more. The Little Cyclones pulled down 15 offensive rebounds and forced the Bobcats into 20 turnovers.

The defensive emphasis led to a diminished impact on the offensive end for Marshalltown leading scorer Lily Roberts, who settled for a pair of free throws. Younkin led the Bobcats with seven points and Rachel Smith scored four points.

“I thought Lily did a nice job (on Waite),” Murphy said. “She ran herself ragged and didn’t get much time off the floor but she really embraced that responsibility of always accepting the hardest defensive assignment. I thought she did a really nice job of scrapping and really forcing Waite to at least work to get into the paint, even if she didn’t stop her from scoring necessarily.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

Marshalltown makes its way onto the road with games Thursday at Des Moines Hoover and Friday at Fort Dodge.

Ames 54, Marshalltown 13

At Marshalltown

AMES (5-3, 3-1) — Ireland Buss 5 0-0 12, Caroline Waite 8 2-2 20, Elaina Deardorff 0 0-0 0, Cameron Moon 1 0-0 2, Kennedy White 4 3-5 11, Brooke Spraggins 0 0-0 0, Ali Frandsen 1 0-0 2, Eliza Loecke 0 0-0 0, Leah Tietjens 1 0-1 2, Haley Prakashan 0 0-0 0, Maddison Pankonen 2 0-1 5. TOTALS 22 5-9 54.

MARSHALLTOWN (0-9, 0-4) — Rachel Smith 2 0-0 4, Carlye Castillo 0 0-0 0, Lily Roberts 0 2-2 2, Sophie Younkin 3 0-0 7, Kaylin Smith 0 0-0 0, Mya Gallegos 0 0-0 0, Sara Huffman 0 0-0 0, Malena Kammerer 0 0-0 0, Amaya Moore 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 5 2-2 13.

AMES 24 14 14 2 — 54

MHS 7 2 0 4 — 13

3-Point Goals–Ames 5 (Buss 2, Waite 2, Pankonen), MHS 1 (Younkin). Team Fouls–Ames 10, MHS 15. Fouled Out–none.