Playing Well & Winning

Another weekend means another few days of action taking place across the state on the Varsity basketball court. Here are five prospects that put together noteworthy weekends for their perspective squads. Each of these specific performances helped their team secure a victory in the end and that's what it is all about. Playing well and winning while doing so.   Thanks for tuning in and enjoy!    Competing out of the 5A Class in Des Moines is no easy task. The competition level, the type of prospects that you see each night on the floor, and the type of scouting that you have to prepare for can be very tough to adapt to but if you can do it, it demonstrates that you have a promising future on the hardwood. Someone that has stepped up for their Freshman season out of that area is [player_tooltip player_id='880901' first='Abbajay' last='Peters'] of Waukee High School. Peters has been someone that most are aware of but right now, she is beginning to come into her own. In her team's contest against SE Polk on Friday, Peters recorded a game high 23 points (8-17) and 11 rebounds. With Peters' quick first step, crafty adaptability, and knowledge of the game, she is going to quickly turn into one of the top prospects in the state. She played up last Spring/Summer for her AAU season and she was one of her team's best. If she stays on this pace, she is going to like where things end up taking her.     [player_tooltip player_id='582828' first='Dasia' last='Foster'] has been a popular individual of conversation these past few weeks strictly because of her production and this article isn't going to be any different. Against Washington last week, Foster recorded a 36 point outburst in her attempts to help her team to victory. Usually this is someone that can get you 20 points and 20 rebounds in a hurry but if you don't contain her near the bucket when she is on offense, it can turn into 35-40 points really quick and that's what happened here. No one could stop her and her team adapted to that right from tip off. I've said it once and I'll say it again. Foster is going to have a very interesting recruitment trail following her stint at Kirkwood CC. If she keeps progressing, who knows where she might take things with her natural size and skill-set.     The Knoxville Panthers haven't started off their season as they would have imagined but they are coming off of a win and looking to use that momentum moving forward. In this most recent victory, the star that shined the most was 5'6 guard, [player_tooltip player_id='1153860' first='Hannah' last='Dunkin']. Dunkin ended the contest with 40 points on 18-29 shooting, along with 11 rebounds, 7 steals, and 4 assists. As you can tell by the stat line, this was Dunkin's night. She was giving out buckets in every way you could imagine, while being a staggering defender on that side of the ball. When the final buzzer sounds, the opponent had 47 total points, leaving Dunkin 7 points shy of out scoring them by herself. This just shows how dominant the performance really was for an outside perspective.     [player_tooltip player_id='560334' first='Claire' last='Turner'] set a new school record last week with a 40 point performance. This breaks the previous record of 39, that had been held since 2010. The most important part of having a big showing is doing it efficiently. If you can score 50 points, it really isn't that noteworthy if you do it on 50 shot attempts. With this 40 point game, Turner did it on 18-25 shooting, giving her a 72% scoring rate when letting it go. In other words, Turner was feeling it from the opening tip to the final buzzer. Each Winter there are a small group of players that do really well at the high school level, boosting their college recruitment and Turner is in that conversation right now. Her consistency has been second to none. Now it's all about using that momentum and continuing to build.     West Delaware got a narrow 3 point victory against Solon on Friday evening to move the Hawks to an overall 9-4 record on the season thus far. The most skilled and known player for the WD program is their PF - [player_tooltip player_id='311358' first='Brooke' last='Kroggeman'] and she put on a show in this one. She scored 29 points (14-17), 16 rebounds, and 8 blocks. This was a clinic on how to hold your own inside the painted area. On both ends of the floor, Kroggeman was a menace. She was scoring at Will, rebounding at a consistent rate on missed shot attempts, and she did a great job at altering shots with her length near the rim defensively. Before this Winter comes to an end, West Delaware is going to surprise a few more teams. Especially if others don't prepare for them properly.

Another weekend means another few days of action taking place across the state on the Varsity basketball court. Here are five prospects that put together noteworthy weekends for their perspective squads. Each of these specific performances helped their team secure a victory in the end and that's what it is all about. Playing well and winning while doing so.