Cyclone girls swish 16 treys, rout Panthers 91-54

 HARLAN (Jan. 29) -- The Harlan Community and Creston girls basketball teams finished the week with identical records of 11-5 overall and 7-2 in the Hawkeye Ten.
 But there was nothing close about Friday night’s matchup of state-ranked 4A teams in Harlan.
 Perhaps still fuming over a four-point loss at Denison Thursday, the 11th-rated Cyclones took out their frustrations on the No. 9 Panthers early and often, establishing a 31-8 first-quarter lead and drilling 16-of-23 three-point shots in a 91-54 victory.
 Senior Jocelyn Cheek had a career night for HCHS, tying a single-game school record with nine 3-pointers (seven in the second half) after making six treys at Denison 24 hours earlier.
 Cheek scored 21 of her game-high 28 points in the second half, hitting two straight threes to open the third quarter and adding five more the rest of the way. She entered an absolute heat zone in the fourth, showcasing a quick release as each shot got a little deeper and continued to scorch the net.
 Cheek’s nine made threes (in 12 attempts) tied a school record first set by Brooke Leinen (9-of-14) in an 87-28 regional win over Red Oak on February 16, 2011. Cheek has now made 44-of-118 treys on the season, ranking in the top two of Class 4A in both makes and attempts.
 “My team does a good job of driving and kicking,” Cheek said. That’s what a lot of our plays are set up for (the) guards to do, so once one falls you get your confidence up and it’s easier to make the next two or three.
 “I think we share the ball really well, and whoever is on we make sure they get the ball in their hands so they can score.”
 Cheek added that she did not have a great pre-game warmup shooting the ball, but she was good to go after making her first three in the opening moments of the game. She also mentioned that the team was still “a little upset with ourselves” due to Thursday’s close loss at No. 10 Denison.
 HCHS, Creston and Lewis Central are now tied for second place in the conference standings behind Glenwood (8-0), followed by D-S at 6-2.
 “We had a rough game (Thursday),” Cheek said, “so we just needed a big comeback tonight and I think we did pretty well with that.
 “We just knew that we had to come out stronger.”
 The Cyclones couldn’t have played a much better first quarter than they did on Friday, making 13 shots (with very few misses) while flustering Creston with an active 1-2-2 press. HCHS put up 13 straight points after the Panthers scored first and led 31-8 until Panther standout Kelsey Fields ended the quarter with a fast break layup.
 Cheek, Brecken Van Baale, Caitlyn Leinen and Ashley Hall each hit a first-quarter three while Macie Leinen and Claire Schmitz were equally tough to stop inside, combining for 11 points in the opening period against Creston’s 1-3-1 zone.
 And while the Cyclones clicked on all cylinders, the Panthers struggled mightily against Harlan’s full court press. Sped up by the traps, they turned the ball over several times early and missed some hurried close-range shots as well.
 Friday’s 1-2-2 press was similar to the 1-2-1-1 press HCHS used to erase a 16-point halftime deficit in last year’s 48-45 win at Creston.
 The purpose of the press was to take the Panthers out of their comfort zone, which involves feeding the ball inside to the 6’2” Fields, who averages 20.5 points and 12.7 rebounds per game. Fields finished with 22 points, but all of her teammates were held to single digits.
 “Our whole focus was if they get comfortable in the half court it’s going to be a field day for Fields,” said HCHS head coach Zach Klaassen. “It’s going to be a pass into the high post at the elbow and then it’s going to be a lob down low.
 “Last year (at halftime) we just decided we’re going to press the heck out of them and push the ball and we ended up winning that one. That was kind of the plan we were going to go with tonight until it didn’t work... We just wanted to make sure the tempo was (fast), whether it’s in the half court and we’re pushing the ball on misses or whether it’s after we (score) to get the traps down in the corners and take chances on their lob passes.”
 The Panthers were able to trade points with HCHS for much of the second quarter after switching to man-to-man defense, but still trailed 46-23 at halftime and never threatened to mount a rally.
 The Cyclones torched Creston’s man defense for 10 threes in the second half, including six during the first six minutes of the fourth quarter even as most of it was played with a running clock.
 Finishing three treys shy of the team record for a game, HCHS hit 16-of-23 from the arc (69.6 percent) and shot 61 percent overall.
 “We trust each other. I trust them shooting; they trust me telling them to shoot,” Klaassen said. “We shoot a lot of threes in practice. Once those are going, then Claire and Macie and Caitlyn can get a little easier look down low. That was kind of the idea, and we were going to try to pull Fields out to that high post as much as we could, then hopefully open up some driving lanes so if we didn’t get the clean layup we could get that kick-out for the three.”
 Klaassen added, “Everything just seemed to work. Whatever we yelled out there for them to run, it just kind of worked out for us and there’s not many nights where that happens so you just ride that momentum.”
 In addition to Cheek’s 28 points, Claire Schmitz had 17 points and six rebounds while Macie Leinen and Caitlyn Leinen both scored 14. Caitlyn knocked down all four of her three-pointers.
 Ashley Hall approached a double-double with nine points and nine assists while Raegen Wicks had four points and seven assists and Van Baale added three points and six assists.
 The Cyclones assisted on 27 of 33 made baskets and had 16 steals defensively, led by Hall, Van Baale and Wicks with three apiece.
 Creston improved as the game went along and shot 53.5 percent from the field, but was hampered by 25 turnovers - a majority of them in the first half when HCHS was pressing. The Panthers were outscored 48-9 from three-point range.
Home stretch:
 The Cyclone girls have just four regular season games left on the schedule, including three this week. They hosted Greene County Monday night and will play at Kuemper Catholic on Tuesday, then host Lewis Central on Friday.
 A strong finish is imperative for HCHS as it hopes to possibly land a regional spot away from top-ranked Glenwood later this month. The Class 4A regional pairings will be released during the week of February 8.
 “If we take care of business between now and then I think that does us a lot of good. It hopefully sends us in the right direction,” said Klaassen.
 “We’ve got four games left in the regular season and I think we need to get all four of them, but we can’t focus on all four of them at once.”
 Klaassen said it will be important that each player knows their role for each particular night down the stretch and that the team continues to share the ball.
 “Everybody has just got to continue doing their job and focus on what they need to do to help us be victorious,” he said.