The state of Iowa held its breath during the first round of the Class 4A Boys State Basketball Tournament as one of the first round matchups saw the reigning back-to-back State Champions, Valley, narrowly escape a huge first-round upset at the hands of Ames High. The game came down to a last second shot from Senior Abe Vos that just missed the mark, many were surprised with the result being as close as it was, seeing that Valley would go on to win the championship; although if you were closely following the basketball team all season long, you would know why this wasn’t a surprise to any of the players.

The Little Cyclones were one of the best-run teams in Class 4A this season, not just in terms of their record, but in the overall function of a team. If you were to look around the entire state of Iowa and look to see how many of the best teams from this season had only one player scoring above 10 points per game, there wouldn’t be many results. This team was built on emphasizing selflessness and needing to take themselves out of the spotlight to put the team in it. The reason they were so successful is that their entire team, from the court to the bench, did just that.

Sixth-Man Manny

One of the players who truly fit within this model of success was senior Manny Lueth, who is one of the more prolific players on the squad. Lueth had some of the best statistical splits for the Little Cyclones this season: Averaging 9.9 points per game, with 48% field goal percentage, and 42.6% three-point percentage, also having among the highest minute totals on the team. Lueth presented a scoring threat from the bench and was a reliable shot maker who gave the Little Cyclones an edge in all rotations of the game.

Now, seeing that Lueth had this solid statline and high minute totals from the season, surely he would’ve been starting, right? 

That wasn’t the case; Lueth had to take on a 6th man role this season, and it wasn’t because he wasn’t good enough to start.

“At first I was a little skeptical, but I took a minute and realized that if I’m gonna be getting meaningful minutes, it doesn’t really matter if I’m starting or not to have an impact on the team,” Senior Manny Lueth said. “I feel like having a player that can come off the bench and can help the starters out is a really helpful thing to a team.”

Headed into the season, the starting spots seemed to be solidified, but that all changed when the coaches considered having a threat from the bench. Not many seniors would be willing to give up a starting spot in their senior seasons, especially if they were one of the best players on the team, but selfless acts such as this made this Little Cyclones team what it was this year.

“I really just tried to focus on playing hard and doing the best I can while I was in,” Lueth said, “I wasn’t trying to think about who I should be starting over or why am I not starting, I just thought about playing my best and helping the team anyway I could.”

A part of why Lueth was so willing to take this role on the bench was cause of the senior class around him, “All of these seniors are hardworking and consistent, they always show up, we were just super deep and good friends off the court, some of the guys who didn’t play could’ve easily gone and gotten minutes on another team,” Lueth said.

As Lueth noted, many of the talented players on this squad could’ve easily gone to a different school and have an increased role there, but they didn’t focus on that. This team wanted to win for each other and play for each other, making this season the special season it was. Players like Manny go to show that you don’t always need the spotlight to be impactful.

The Bench Mob

That can be said for three of the seniors on the basketball team who rarely got playing time and the spotlight. But their levels of energy and leadership from the bench and in practice were crucial in keeping the team’s spirit high at all costs.

Seniors Luke Brekke, Fin DeLisi, and Trevor Goodwin were pivotal in this team’s success this season, even though they weren’t playing as much. Their impact goes far beyond the stat sheet and what the student section gets to see on game nights.

“Where can I start on those three, the crowd only saw bits of what they do for us,” Senior Abe Vos said. “In practice, they would bring double the energy we would have, and it would just rub off on everybody. They set a great example of putting their team’s success before their own personal success; that’s great for any team.”

Many seniors wouldn’t want to resign to a “benchwarming” role, but these three? They embraced it and thrived in it.

“I will always stand by this, I think we had the best bench in the state of Iowa,” Senior Luke Brekke said. “I mean, just the passion for our team and letting those guys know that they can always look over at us during a game, knowing that we’ve got their back and will always bring the energy they need.”

Being on the end of the bench is a bit more than just bringing a hype man aspect to things.

“The best ability we have is to shout things out,” Brekke added, “We can shout at the guys to close down on the shooter in the corner, we can tell them what plays could be getting run, warn them about tendencies the other players have, so it’s really just maximizing the role from a hypeman to something a little bit more.”

The three seniors knew that they would need to bring as much energy as they could; if they weren’t giving the most they could on the court, they’d be able to do so from the bench.

“You can’t have a dead bench,” Senior Trevor Goodwin said. “Momentum is a huge thing in basketball, and it’s our job to carry that energy on the bench. It helps your team go on runs where they’re just making shots and getting stops, it’s a huge thing to have.”

Magical Senior Night vs. Marshalltown

One of the most memorable moments from this season was the Little Cyclones’ senior night bout vs Marshalltown. It wasn’t the usual game because they didn’t start their regular starters. For the first six minutes of the game, the seniors who don’t get as much playing time got their shot to show off what they can do.

“It was almost perfect,” Senior Fin DeLisi said. “Luke, Trevor, Athian [Deng], Garang [Deng], and I have been playing together since probably 7th grade, so the chemistry’s there and we’ve been practicing with each other for the entire year, so it wasn’t anything new.”

The seniors completely shocked everyone by opening up with an 18-2 run on the Bobcats, sending the crowd and the rest of the team into a complete frenzy.

“It was already cool getting our time to shine on senior night, we already knew it would be good, but an 18-2 run was just unreal, I was not expecting that at all,” Delisi added. “It was truly surreal and was the start of a great night.”

Senior Athian Deng scored a lot of the points during that run, all the guys just kept feeding him in the low post. One of the highlights in the run was Luke Brekke draining a three that had the crowd going wild, making that moment one of the best of the night.

“It was a great experience,” Goodwin said. “There was a lot of adrenaline running through, and we played hard for six minutes, which was crazy tiring; we were dead after, but it was worth it.”

None of these seniors cared about making a name for themselves that night, their focus remained the same: dominate and win the game.

“Everybody was doing their thing and playing their role,” Brekke said. “It was an amazing night, being able to show what we can do not just individually but as a unit just showed how true the bond is with those guys, nobody wanted all the glory for themselves that night, we all just focused on getting a chance to finally get to share the court with each other.”

Abe Vos even went as far as to think that Coach Downs should have let them stay in.”Coach should’ve just kept them in, they were cooking, because at the rate they were going, they probably would’ve ended up scoring more points than the starters ended up scoring,” Vos said. 

The admiration for the senior coalition at the end of the bench goes throughout the entire team up to the starters, such as Jamison Poe and Abe Vos, who knew their roles in the starting lineup just as well as those guys on the bench did.

Poe and Vos Helping Lead the Charge

Seniors Jamison Poe and Abe Vos took charge of their roles as senior leaders this season, wielding quite the Varsity experience: each of them having 3 years of varsity basketball under their belt prior to this season.

Being great basketball players in their own right who have great all-around abilities, Poe and Vos even knew that they would have to set all of that aside to work with the team. The two vets managed to still put together great senior campaigns even while emphasizing a team-first mentality: Poe with 9.5 ppg on 46.5% FG, and Vos with 10.4 ppg on 50.8% FG, providing the Little Cyclones with even more efficient scoring regardless of where they were on the court.

“We all play the same way, so we had to work on working around each other,” Poe said. “If we figured out that one person can’t score all the points and that it takes a group of us, we knew we could do great things, and that happened.”

For Poe, having this team-first mindset even meant taking steps as far as having to give up football after his junior season, even after his two standout campaigns and a breakthrough freshman season. The senior knew that he needed to step up and be there for the team as much as possible, while it was a difficult decision, he knew it was something he had to do.

“A lot went into the decision, obviously our coach took a position somewhere else,” Poe said. “I saw the promise in the basketball team and knew that we could do great things, so I figured that I should prioritize basketball to get this team going on the right track.”

Vos also had a big change in his career when he made the big move to Ames High after two years at Des Moines Hoover. Vos played two years of Varsity basketball at Hoover with his older brother Elijah, who graduated after Abe’s sophomore year.

“It was a big change, coming from Hoover, I had no clue what to expect,” Vos said.”Coming here was just a blessing, I think everyone from the coaches to the players are amazing, and the relationships I built through all the ups and downs were amazing.”

As previously mentioned, both players possess a great all-around game, so it was easy for them to adapt to their all-around roles. But of course, that doesn’t come without the influence of Coach Vance Downs.

“Coach Downs was just really good at coaching us as a team,” Vos said. “He didn’t hesitate one second to get the point across that everything we do is for the team, point blank.”

“He put it in a blunt sense; If you don’t want to accept your role and don’t want what is best for the team, then we don’t want you here,” Vos continued. “So, everybody accepted their role and played it to the best of their ability, and that came from a lot of leadership and humility as well.”

Being a leader means being fearless as well, and for Poe–as a shorter guard–he has no other choice but to be fearless. Poe drives to the basket a lot more than other players in his position, who typically would be hesitant to do so.

“There’s always gonna be fear there, I used to have a couple [fears], but everybody gets blocked,” Poe said. “I don’t really care who’s in front of me, I’m just gonna play my game and do me, and if I get blocked, so what.”

Poe took inspiration from Little Cyclone alum and current Iowa State Cyclone, Tamin Lipsey, as inspiration for his style of play. Poe had a chance to watch Lipsey up front during his freshman year, getting to see all the traits and qualities of his game, and figuring out how to incorporate them into his game.

“Watching Tamin Lipsey my freshman year was big for me, seeing all the ways he contributed to the team and all the nice things he did,” Poe said. “It really had me thinking ‘those are pretty big shoes to fill’, so it was good pressure to motivate me, but at the end of the day, I had to remain true to myself.”

Poe and Vos have great praise for their fellow seniors and know just how much they all mean to the team from top-to-bottom.

“All these senior guys are great examples,” Vos said. “They’re passionate, humble, and hardworking. I do believe we were one of the hardest-working teams in Iowa, we were also really humble because we took our roles and played–not for ourselves, but for the team, and having more points on the scoreboard at the end of the day,” Vos added.

Staying for the Ups and the “Downs”

All of these seniors had amazing times here, from playing on the State Champion team in 2022 to the Magical Senior Night versus Marshalltown. They had all great times, but they had some humbling and not-so-great moments that needed to occur for their eventual triumphs to happen.

As Abe Vos put it, in a nod to Coach Downs, “You always gotta be thankful for the ‘Downs’ at the end of the day.”

Many have also said that Downs has never been scared to tell it how it is, and Vos got to experience this firsthand.

“Nobody really knows this, but I got kicked out of practice one day,” Vos said. “[Coach] Downs gave me the boot, because things were getting heated and I started chirping with some guys, which disrupted the practice quite a bit.”

“Coach Downs was crucial in helping me get my attitude right; it has skyrocketed in my time here, in large part to the times where Coach has checked me,” Vos added.

Manny Lueth’s humbling moment came during his Junior season while playing at the Cedar Rapids Tournament, where the Little Cyclones experienced a couple of losses, including a 20-point loss.

“That tournament really served as a wake-up call for us that year, and motivated us for next year, the team wasn’t ranked in the top 10 or anything,” Lueth said. “We played really badly, and it humbled us because it showed us just how much we needed to get better.”

For Jamison Poe and Trevor Goodwin, their moments came when the Little Cyclones fell short of state qualification after three straight years of trips to Wells Fargo Arena.

“When we didn’t make state Junior year, that one hurt a lot,” Poe said. “I thought it was over and wasn’t positive mentally, thinking we wouldn’t get back there, but it just motivated me to step up and do everything I possibly could to make sure we were in the position to get back there and make a run.”

Even while being on the bench, the loss hurt Goodwin because he knew what the legacy of this program was.

“Not making it Junior year sucked,” Goodwin said. “That has been the standard at Ames High for so long, and we didn’t meet that, so that was felt by everyone on the team; we were motivated to play our part and help the team get back to that standard.”

For Fin DeLisi and Luke Brekke, their moments came at some specific instances.

“There was one time Manny crossed me and made me touch Earth,” Delisi said. “That wasn’t the worst part, though, because he drained the three in my face as I came up from the floor, so that was very humbling.”

“That was the only time he scored on me all year, I usually locked him up,” DeLisi jokingly added.

Basketball games are very long, and when a player is sitting the entire game, they lose their warmup and go in a little bit rusty. That was the case for Brekke when he got some garbage time minutes in a conference game this season.

“After sitting on the bench during the game, not having warmed up in roughly 45 minutes to an hour, you’re gonna get rusty, I am a firm believer in staying ready, but I was NOT ready here,” Brekke said. “There was a time versus Mason City where I got some garbage time PT [playing time], and I shot a three from the corner, disgustingly airballed it, so that was very embarrassing.”

Then, the occasional slip-up in a practice would result in quite a wake-up call for Brekke.

“There have been PLENTY of times where Coach Downs has yelled at me at practice and I have not one regret about any time he did,” Brekke added.

For some of the seniors, it was the little and simple things that were their favorite moments here: for Abe Vos, it was going to Pizza Ranch with the team, for Manny Lueth, it was playing “Tweaker” by GELO before and after games, for Trevor Goodwin, it was simply watching the student section go crazy at games and always showing up.

Going through an entire four years of a sport is always hard, it gets grueling, and seemingly endless. But, as these seniors know, struggles will always be there–but without the struggle, there will never be progress. Also, it comes to an end before many realize it.

“Don’t quit, I know it’s hard to keep going, but don’t quit,” Jamison Poe said. “There were times I was struggling, I didn’t wanna be there all the time, but Coach Downs was there for me.”

A crucial part in getting through those years for Poe was simply asking for help.

“Ask questions, these people will always help you and want the best for you, and especially look up to the seniors cause they’ve been through the journey,” Poe added.

But throughout all of these ups and downs, these seniors never lost their passion for their team and representing Ames High. Throughout this season of being underdogs, they showed just how much it means to be a Little Cyclone and what a privilege it is to represent Ames as a community.

“I’m just really gonna miss the team, it’s such a special group of guys to be around,” Brekke said. “It was more than just the score; it was the countless amount of time spent working hard with these guys, and being able to succeed with them is something special.”