A miraculous North Linn comeback in boys’ state basketball semifinals

DES MOINES — They’ve won an amazing 208 of their last 215 games.

And of those 208, this one ranks at the very top of the improbability scale. Has to.

Down 16 points in the fourth quarter, having absolutely nothing going, their best player hobbling around the court and unable to do much of anything offensively because of a sprained ankle, the North Lynn Lynx suddenly and almost unexplainedly found magic Wednesday night.

Breckyn Betenbender’s 3-pointer with 30 seconds left capped a wild, out-of-the-blue 52-50 comeback win over Remsen St. Mary’s in a Class 1A state tournament semifinal at Wells Fargo Arena. This will be the sixth consecutive championship game appearance for North Linn (26-0), and this one comes as pretty much house money.

Top-ranked Grand View Christian (26-0) is the Lynx’s finals opponent Friday afternoon at 1 in a rubber match, of sorts. It’s a repeat of last year’s 1A championship game, which North Linn won.

Grand View beat North Linn for the 2018 1A title.

“I’ve been around basketball a lot and seen some crazy things happen,. Probably crazier things than this,” said North Linn Coach Mike Hilmer. “But not in this spotlight down at the state tournament.”

Where to begin here?

Tate Haughenbury was injured in the first half and scored only five points in the game for North Linn, unable to dribble-drive and penetrate as usual. He gutted out the rest of the game anyway.

A 3-pointer by Alex Schroeder gave St. Mary’s (23-3) a 48-32 lead with 7:38 to go, and a Hawks revenge (North Linn beat St. Mary’s in last year’s semifinals) was all but a certainty. But then ...

Shots finally started to fall for the Lynx, specifically treys from Betenbender and Ty Pflughaupt. They combined for nine of them: five from Pflughaupt, four from Betenbender.

St. Mary’s did a marvelous job the entire game of running the shot clock down and hitting shots at the end of it, but suddenly that stopped happening. A Pflughaupt trey made it a 50-44 game with 3:45 left, then Betenbender followed with a 3 to make it 50-47 with 1:55 to go.

The junior guard wasn’t even defended by Wapsie Valley in a substate final a week and a half ago, allowed to just fire away. Wednesday night he was swishing shots from beyond the NBA line.

“They finally started falling,” Betenbender said. “At the end, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just shooting. They were going in luckily.”

⧉ Related article: Photos: North Linn claws its way back to beat Remsen St. Mary’s in boys’ state basketball semifinals

A Mason Bechen jumper pulled North Linn within a point with 1:14 to go. After another defensive stop, Betenbender found himself open again beyond the arc.

You know the rest.

“When we got it down to nine, and Breckyn and Ty were hitting their shots, I think we knew we could come back,” said Bechen.

“We got together as a team and were making sure we were all on the same page,” Betenbender said. “I think we just dug down for another level we knew we had, on defense especially. We went to face guarding everybody and making their players who weren’t used to handling it, do something. We finally started hitting shots at the right time.”

St. Mary’s got one final possession. North Linn committed a foul with three seconds left , though the Hawks were not in the bonus.

Jaxon Bunkers got off a heavily contested jumper at the buzzer that missed.

“Just amazing,” said Pflughaupt, who led his team with 19 points. “Grand View is a good team. They’re huge. We’re going to have play hard, physical, hope our shots are falling, box out on rebounds. And hopefully win another one.”

After this game, it’s hard to doubt the Lynx, right?

“We had multiple guys hit big shots in the fourth quarter,” Hilmer said. “Nobody gave up. We made two adjustments defensively, did a pretty job there of disrupting them. We didn’t panic.”

AT DES MOINES

REMSEN ST. MARY’S (50): Alex Schroeder 2-5 0-0 6, Cael Ortmann 4-12 0-0 12, Ryan Willman 5-9 0-0 10, Jaxon Bunkers 4-9 0-2 10, Collin Homan 5-8 2-4 12, Landon Waldschmitt 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 20-44 2-6 50.

NORTH LINN (52): Ben Wheatley 1-4 0-0 2, Breckyn Betenbender 5-7 0-0 14, Mason Bechen 4-9 1-1 10, Ty Pflughaupt 7-10 0-1 19, Tate Haughenbury 1-5 2-2 5, Cole Griffith 0-0 0-0 0, Drew Ries 1-3 0-0 2, Jake Van Etten 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-38 3-4 52.

Halftime - St. Mary’s 31, North Linn 19. 3-point goals - St. Mary’s 8-17 (Schroeder 2-4, Ortmann 4-9, Bunkers 2-4), North Linn 11-21 (Wheatley 0-2, Betenbender 4-5, Bechen 1-4, Pflughaupt 5-7, Haughenbury 1-1). Rebounds - St. Mary’s 27 (Homan 11), North Linn 16 (Haughenbury 7). Total fouls - St. Mary’s 7, North Linn 11. Fouled out - None. Assists - St. Mary’s 11 (Ortmann, Bunkers 5), North Linn 9 (Haughenbury 5). Turnovers - St. Mary’s 9, North Linn 6.

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