Stunning second-half rally lifts Mount Vernon to Class 2A state championship

DES MOINES - A basketball team that slogged, stuttered and stumbled its way through nearly three full quarters Friday night suddenly, stunningly flipped a switch. And gets a state championship because it did.

Mount Vernon rallied from a 15-point deficit in the third quarter to win the Class 2A title, 48-45, over Fort Dodge St. Edmond at Wells Fargo Arena. It's MV's second basketball championship, its first in 39 years.

They'll be trying to figure out for a few days just exactly how the Mustangs did it.

“Our kids showed so much heart, so much resilience,” Mount Vernon Coach Ed Timm said. “I'm humbled by how hard they come to play every single day.”

Micah Russell's inside power hoop with 2:03 left put Mount Vernon ahead for good, 45-44. The Mustangs stole an attempted St. Edmond pass to the interior with 37 seconds left, then had all-tournament captain Jake Timm hit three clutch free throws to seal the championship deal.

Timm struggled with his shot all night, scoring just eight points and missing his first four free throws. But he was money from the line in the final 19.4 seconds, making three of four.

"Those are the shots you dream about taking when you're a little kid," he said.

The one foul shot he missed, with 7.7 seconds to go, allowed St. Edmond (20-7) to have one final chance, but the Gaels fumbled the rebound and couldn't even get a desperation heave off in time.

"We did a great job in the first half," said St. Edmond guard Nick Clark, who finished with a game-high 24 points. "But we didn't do a good job in the second half. They just started hitting shots."

Mount Vernon (23-4) went 14 minutes during one span in the game with a single field goal and had only 17 points through the first 20:19. But it began its amazing turnaround late in the third quarter, led, per usual, by its senior trio of Timm, Jack Keleher and Micah Russell.

It went from being a 32-17 St. Edmond lead to just 36-32 heading to the fourth. The momentum shift was obvious.

“We knew on offense that we needed to play with confidence,” said Russell, who had a team-best 19 points. “Our shots weren't falling in the beginning. But we knew that they eventually would go in. We just knew that. We played so well this whole tournament that we knew our shots would eventually fall.”

“We just went on a run,” said Jack Keleher, who scored 10 big second-half points after going scoreless because of foul trouble in the first. “Everything was falling for them at first and nothing was falling for us. We knew eventually that wouldn't continue.”

Even light-scoring Will Teubel got into the act, hitting consecutive baskets to finally tie it at 38-38 with 5:41 left. He came in averaging two points a game.

"I kept telling our kids that we played a game about a month ago exactly like this against Anamosa," Coach Timm said. "They hit about four 3s, they banked one in. We were down 13 going into the fourth quarter. We couldn't make a shot, and they were making every shot.

"I just felt like 'If you just make a couple of shots.' It just makes it tougher for them. They get a little bit tight. That's what happened."

Four straight points from Connor Shaffer off the bench gave Mount Vernon an 8-5 lead midway through the first quarter. But St. Edmond scored 12 of the final 14 points to assume a 17-10 lead.

Clark's banked 3-pointer from the wing at the buzzer perfectly summed up his hot start. He had 13 first-quarter points. St. Edmond rolled to a 28-17 halftime edge behind 55-percent first-half shooting, including 6 of 12 from distance.

The significant story other than Clark in the opening frame was the foul trouble of Keleher. The senior guard picked up three of them in the first 5:30 and headed to the bench the rest of the half.

The loss of their second-leading scorer (14 points a game) obviously damaged the Mustangs, who shot just 25 percent in the first half. But they ultimately persevered.

“We knew that we'd shot the ball well enough during the season that if we could just keep playing defense, our shots would start falling,” said Jake Timm. "They couldn't miss the first half, we couldn't miss the second half."

The rest is championship history.

Here's video of the final 7.7 seconds and a link to the game boxscore:

St Edmond, Fort Dodge vs Mount Vernon (03!09!12 at IOWA Boys State Tourn -2A Championship)