Cedar Falls topples Cedar Rapids Kennedy, 79-73

CEDAR FALLS - The Iowa High School Athletic Association won’t come out with its first official boys’ basketball rankings until the new year.

The first Monday of the new year, to be specific.

But here’s an educated guess about who the No. 1 team in Class 4A will be, barring any upsets the rest of this week. That’d be Cedar Falls.

The Tigers built a 12-point lead in the second half and hung on to knock off Cedar Rapids Kennedy, 79-73, in an exquisite contest Tuesday night that ended Kennedy’s 46-game regular-season win streak.

The last time the Cougars had lost in the regular season was Feb. 17, 2022, to ... Cedar Falls. Cruel irony.

These Tigers (4-0), by the way, have blown out top 10-worthy teams from Linn-Mar and Iowa City West in the very early going of the season. Now you can add this win.

“I don’t know. It’s so hard to compare the conferences,” Cedar Falls Coach Ryan Schultz said, not taking the bait when asked if he felt his team is number one. “That’s why the crossover games that we’ll play in will be a good thing. Obviously I’m going to be a proponent and an advocate for the MVC. At the same time, it’s just too early and too hard to know those things.”

The crossover games Schultz referred to are part of a seven-game, 14-team, four-conference mega-event at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse in Cedar Rapids on Jan. 4. The specific pairings will be determined later this week, but participants include CF, Kennedy, Linn-Mar, West, Dubuque Senior, Johnston, Waukee Northwest, defending 3A champion Davenport Assumption and two-time defending 4A champ West Des Moines Valley.

Those are some heavy hitters.

“I know Cedar Falls is really good,” said Kennedy Coach Jon McKowen. “And I know we’re young, and a month from now, we’re going to be a lot better. But we’re also a lot better right now than we were when we started practice.”

CF scored the first seven points of this game, seemingly taking advantage of a Kennedy team that has obvious talent but not a ton of experience. The Cougars then countered with the next seven points, a pattern you saw all night.

Cedar Falls took a 49-37 lead midway through the third quarter, and you wondered if that would be all she wrote. But Kennedy again regrouped and countered, closing within two, 56-54, a minute into the fourth quarter.

Cedar Falls responded with three consecutive 3-pointers, two from guard Keegan Steege and another from guard Anthony Galvin, to re-establish a double-figure lead of 11. Again you wondered if that was all she wrote, but Kennedy kept chipping away and got within one, 74-73, on a Landon Deiters trey with 36 seconds left.

“I was happy that we didn’t quit,” McKowen said. “A tough environment, three-quarters of the kids didn’t play varsity basketball for us last year. Seeing how they responded, I was very pleased. They stayed together on the bench. Every mistake we made tonight is correctable. How we guarded ball screens, we tried to make some adjustments in how we were going to guard that skip (pass). It just didn’t transfer. But a lot of distractions with the noise and the magnitude of the game.”

CF’s Jaydon Kimbrough clutched up for two free throws to make it a 76-73 game with 23.6 seconds left, Kennedy missed a 3-point attempt with 11.9 to go and Kimbrough made two more free throws for the final score. He finished with 17 points.

Forward William Gerdes led the Tigers with 24 points. Galvin and Steege added 14 each.

“It kind of shows that we don’t have to have a great game to come out with a big win,” said the 6-foot-9 Gerdes. “Playing a team like Kennedy, they’re always going to have a good game. They shot really well tonight. Just kind of having a shooting night like they had, and we didn’t play the best offensively or defensively, quite honestly, to be able to get the win is huge for us.”

Cedar Falls shot it well, making 61 percent of its field-goal attempts, including going 11 of 22 from range. Trey McKowen led Kennedy (3-1) with 25 points, with Deiters adding 14 and Sharief Thomas 11.

Kennedy was able to rally because it had really good second-half 3-point shooting. The Cougars made 8 of 13 from beyond the arc.

“We can compete, for sure,” Deiters said. “It was a tough environment. They came out 7-0, but we were able to bounce back from that, and I thought that showed a lot. Especially out of our younger guys.”

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AT CEDAR FALLS

CEDAR RAPIDS KENNEDY (73): Reuben Schlaak 4-6 0-0 9, Landon Deiters 4-5 5-6 14, Sharief Thomas 4-9 0-0 11, Jaxson Bean 1-3 0-0 2, Trey McKowen 8-21 7-8 25, Justin Powell 2-3 0-0 6, Carter Cook 0-0 0-0 0, Deacon Kucera 0-0 0-0 0, Jacob Doyle 2-4 0-0 6. Totals 25-51 12-14 73.

CEDAR FALLS (79): William Gerdes 9-13 6-7 24, Leyton Wolf 2-3 2-3 6, Jaydon Kimbrough 5-7 3-4 17, Anthony Galvin 5-8 0-0 14, Keegan Steege 5-8 1-2 14, Trey Reuter 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Townsend 1-5 0-0 2, Liam O’Neill 0-0 0-0 0, Carsen Gary 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 28-46 12-16 79.

Halftime - Cedar Falls 37, C.R. Kennedy 32. 3-point goals - C.R. Kennedy 11-23 (Schlaak 1-2, Deiters 1-2, Thomas 3-5, McKowen 2-7, Powell 2-3, Doyle 2-4), Cedar Falls 11-22 (Kimbrough 4-6, Galvin 4-6, Steege 3-5, Reuter 1-1, Townsend 1-3). Rebounds - C.R. Kennedy 23 (Deiters 6), Cedar Falls 26 (Gerdes 8). Total fouls - C.R. Kennedy 21, Cedar Falls 15. Fouled out - Powell. Turnovers - C.R. Kennedy 13, Cedar Falls 12.

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