Until Saturday.

Fourth-ranked Montezuma used a surging second-half comeback to overtake surprising Grundy Center and beat the Spartans 64-55 in the Class 1A Substate 5 finals inside the Roundhouse, ending a frustrating 29-year state tournament drought in the process.

Braves sophomores Trey Shearer and Cole Watts combined to score 42 points and Montezuma turned the tables on Grundy Center’s 14-point halftime lead by getting back to the gameplan that got them to the substate finals. Shearer spearheaded the attack with the dribble-drive on offense and the Braves defense collapsed on the Spartans’ potent post players to neutralize Grundy Center’s best threat of handing Montezuma (21-1) another heartbreaking postseason defeat.

The Braves have won at least 16 games in each of the last seven seasons, but only this squad will have a state tournament banner to hang from the rafters.

T-R PHOTO ROSS THEDE - Montezuma sophomore Trey Shearer relishes the moment as the final horn sounds the end of the game. Shearer scored a game-high 25 points in the win.

Second-year head coach Derrick Dengler, a 2007 North Tama graduate, got choked up pointing to the reasons this year’s team made it happen.

“I think these guys started playing together a lot better,” he said. “I think we had guys willing to sacrifice things like statistics, maybe even playing time at times, and just came together and played as a team and that was the biggest thing, that was the biggest key, that was our biggest area we grew.

“We talk a lot about playing for each other as a team and how much stronger you are when you do that. We just really talked about digging deep and they did a great job.”

Shearer — who scored a game-high 25 points — said that’s all his team could do after falling behind by 14 at the half. The Braves outscored the Spartans 40-17 in the second half.

“Coach said ‘calm down, you know what you’re doing, you know how to win,’ and we came out and got some early fouls, made our shots, played good defense and put it together piece by piece,” said Shearer. “It feels so great, it’s such a good group, so to put it all together it just means a lot to all of us. We’re all super excited about it.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

Grundy Center was searching for its first trip to state since back-to-back visits in 2002 and 2003, and the Spartans (12-11) took a strong step in the second quarter. Cale Hendricks got two 3-pointers to drop, and senior posts Joe Johnson and Matthew Sternhagen combined to score 14 points as the Spartans outscored the Braves 25-9 in the period to take a 38-24 lead into the intermission.

Equally impressive was the Grundy Center defense, which held Montezuma to just three points over the final 4 minutes, 24 seconds, and was a key cog in the Spartans’ stunning run through the second half of the season.

After starting the year 2-8, Grundy Center won 10 of 12 games to get to the substate final before bowing out to the Braves one round shy of state.

“We came out [of halftime] with the same intensity, but they hit some shots in the second half they weren’t hitting in the first half, and hat’s off to the Shearer kid,” said Spartan head coach Joe Nelson. “He’s a great player, he absolutely controlled the second half and that’s just the type of player he is. We knew that and we did a really good job in the first half, and some shots we made in the first half, in the second half they didn’t come around.”

The Spartans splashed four of their five 3-pointers in the first half but couldn’t get the long-range shots to drop after the break. Johnson and Sternhagen combined to score 22 points in the first half before Montezuma made a concerted effort to keep the ball out of their hands, and Grundy Center’s outside shooting went awry.

T-R PHOTO ROSS THEDE

Montezuma erased its 14-point deficit with a 17-5 third-quarter advantage, highlighted by seven points for Watts and a corner 3-pointer by Hunter Ray just before the buzzer.

The two teams both landed jabs to start the fourth quarter before Montezuma delivered the knockout, outscoring Grundy Center 12-2 over the final four minutes of the game. Mitchell Munson made a 3-pointer and Hendricks hit two free throws to give the Spartans their last lead, 53-52, before the Braves pulled away with a 10-0 rally.

Shearer attacked the basket for a layup, Watts converted a three-point play and Shearer found Ray for an uncontested layup to put the pressure on Grundy Center, which in turn committed three-straight turnovers. Shearer made 5-of-6 free-throws inside the final 45 seconds to seal the Braves’ sixth state tournament appearance in school history.

“It’s really special, it just means so much to me for our kids,” said Dengler. “They’ve worked so hard and to see them have that opportunity pay off this way is great.

“Our biggest thing at halftime was coming back to the gameplan and just focus on digging deep and laying everything they had on the floor and they did, so that was awesome to see.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

Behind Shearer’s 25 points and Watts’ 17, Ray finished with nine points, four rebounds and four blocked shots, and Nolan Havran added five points. Freshman post Eddie Burgess led Montezuma with seven rebounds and Nolan Reynolds had six more.

“Trey’s such a great ballhandler and creator, he can get so much for our other guys and our other guys have really grown and are just living in those roles and that was awesome to see because it starts with [Shearer] but a lot of those other guys helped finish it,” said Dengler. “We just needed that effort team-wise offensively. It’s not that everybody scores 10 points, but everybody made a big bucket or made a big stop or did something that really mattered.”

Johnson had a career-high 22 points to go with team-highs of eight rebounds and four blocked shots for Grundy Center, which graduates 10 seniors. Sternhagen and Hendricks both finished with 10 points, while Munson and Zach Opheim had five apiece. Tanner Appel chipped in three points and four boards.

“I just can’t be more proud of the kids,” said Nelson. “The better team won tonight and congrats to them. That’s a really good team and I expect them to be pretty productive in the state tournament in a couple weeks.

“Our seniors were absolutely committed and that’s the whole reason that we’re sitting here in Marshalltown because they decided — coach has been telling us this for 2-3 years now and they finally decided he’s right and we can do it and we’re just going to do it. It was huge for us to have the team leadership we had. … Our seniors are the only reason we’re here. They decided as a group we’re going to put this on our shoulders and we’re going to take us to the end and we’re one step short of our goal but I can’t be any more proud of these guys than I am now.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

NOTEBOOK

Montezuma’s previous two trips to state yielded championships in 1971 and 1990. Former Marshalltown Community College head baseball coach Rich Grife, of Haverhill, was the captain of the 1A all-tournament team when Montezuma won the title in 1990. … Outgoing Marshalltown High School athletic director Rollie Ackerman was the head coach at Grundy Center when the Spartans last made it to state in 2002 and 2003. … Montezuma head coach Derrick Dengler was a starting member of North Tama’s 16-5 squad in 2006-07 and averaged a team-leading 10.9 points per game.

Montezuma 64, Grundy Center 55

At Marshalltown

GRUNDY CENTER (12-11) — Cale Hendricks 2-5 4-4 10, Travis Kuester 0-6 0-0 0, Zach Opheim 2-7 0-0 5, Joe Johnson 7-11 8-9 22, Tanner Appel 1-6 0-0 3, Mitchell Munson 2-8 0-0 5, Derek Ciddio 0-1 0-0 0, Matthew Sternhagen 3-7 4-6 10. TOTALS 17-51 16-19 55.

MONTEZUMA (21-1) — Brayden Arendt 1-2 0-0 2, Nolan Havran 2-4 1-4 5, Hunter Ray 4-9 0-0 9, Trey Shearer 7-17 10-13 25, Eddie Burgess 1-4 0-0 2, Nolan Reynolds 2-3 0-2 4, Keaton Minner 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS 23-50 15-25 64.

GRUNDY CTR. 13 25 5 12 — 55

MONTEZUMA 15 9 17 23 — 64

3-Point Goals–GC 5-25 (Hendricks 2-4, Appel 1-3, Opheim 1-4, Munson 1-7, Ciddio 0-1, Sternhagen 0-1, Kuester 0-5), Montezuma 3-14 (Ray 1-2, Shearer 1-4, Watts 1-5, Arendt 0-1, Havran 0-1, Burgess 0-1). Rebounds–GC 36 (Johnson 8), Montezuma 28 (Burgess 7). Total Fouls–GC 19, Montezuma 14. Fouled Out–Hendricks.

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