DES MOINES — A confusing series of events seemed to stall the Bobcats’ comeback.

The Marshalltown boys’ basketball team rallied back to within two points before a contested call granted Des Moines North the chance to close out a 59-54 victory over the Bobcats on Tuesday night.

Marshalltown (8-4) trailed by as many as 11 points during the fourth quarter before rallying back to within two, 56-54, with 18 seconds to play. After a Bobcat foul, Jacob Hayes stole North’s inbounds pass and his layup attempt was counted due to goaltending.

After whistles sounded to confirm the basket, the officials conferred with the scorer’s table and retroactively granted North two free throws for the foul preceding the inbounds play. North (4-6) had reached the bonus on Marshalltown’s foul, but a scoring error negated the Polar Bears from shooting free throws initially.

Instead of being down by two, Marshalltown watched as North’s Corde Patterson went 1-of-2 at the free-throw line to make it a three-point game, and the Polar Bears took the ball out of bounds to follow up from the goaltending call.

Robert Seals missed both of his subsequent free-throw attempts, but failure to block him out allowed Seals to rebound his own miss. He made both attempts, putting the game out of reach with 15 seconds remaining.

“We weren’t very good tonight, just to be honest with you, in a lot of different areas,” MHS head coach Michael Appel told KFJB-TV’s Dylan Does. “We kinda lost our DNA and what makes us really good.

“We’ve been a lot better than that in a lot of different areas, but it’s not the end of the world. We’ve gotta learn from it and have two good days of practice here and be ready to play Roosevelt.”

The Bobcats fell to 1-3 on the road with the loss. MHS trailed 31-26 late in the third quarter before a surge earned the lead, 32-31. North scored the last five points of the period, however, and added on the next seven to start the fourth.

Marshalltown countered with seven in a row, including a Damian Segovia 3-pointer, and a Drake Gersema 3-pointer made it 48-45 with 2:15 left to play.

Hayes scored seven points in a row for the Bobcats, including his steal and layup with 18 seconds left, to get his team within two, but things went haywire from there.

Hayes, Segovia and Gersema all finished with 13 points apiece to lead Marshalltown, and Kyle Smith tacked on 11. Gersema, Smith and Hayes had six rebounds each, and Hayes finished with five assists as well.

“I just thought we took some really bad shots that we didn’t necessarily need to take at times and that’s what happens when you play a team like that that primarily plays zone,” Appel said. “We’ve got to understand we’ve got to move the ball and find their weak spots and attack them and we just didn’t do a very good job of that.”

In all, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Polar Bears from scoring their fourth-straight in the series with Marshalltown. T’Angello Bush scored a game-high 34 points to power North, making five 3-pointers and going 3-for-3 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.

Seals scored 11 points and Taveon Boone added 10 for the Polar Bears.

Marshalltown returns home for Friday’s showdown with Des Moines Roosevelt.

Des Moines North 59, Marshalltown 54

MARSHALLTOWN (8-4) — Drake Gersema 6 0-0 13, Kyle Smith 4 1-4 11, Damian Segovia 5 0-0 13, Jacob Hayes 5 1-2 13, Larrs Schoenfelder 0 0-0 0, Jamison Niehouse 1 0-0 2, Gavin Misek 0 2-2 2, Garrett Thede 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 21 4-8 54.

DM NORTH (4-6) — Taveon Boone 5 0-0 10, Robert Seals 3 2-4 11, JJ Seay Jr. 0 0-0 0, T’Angello Bush 12 5-6 34, Corde Patterson 1 2-4 4, Andrew Chuol 0 0-0 0, Alexandrei Lopez 0 0-0 0, Connor Noeuy 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 21 9-14 59.

MHS 10 7 15 22 — 54

DM NORTH 9 10 17 23 — 59

3-Point Goals–MHS 8 (Segovia 3, Smith 2, Hayes 2, Gersema), DM North 8 (Bush 5, Seals 3). Team Fouls–MHS 12, DM North 12. Fouled Out–none.