North Linn beats West Fork to qualify for boys’ state basketball tournament an 8th consecutive season

DIKE — Eight is great.

In reality, two or three straight state tournament appearances is pretty great. Especially in Class 1A, where there are so many more schools than in any other class.

So eight, guess you have to come up with something better to describe what the North Linn boys’ basketball program has established now. Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great?

A 74-59 win over West Fork in a Saturday night 1A substate final secured a trip to Des Moines for the top-ranked Lynx. Another trip to Des Moines: seven in a row plus won.

“Definitely as a senior, you’ve got to be a leader,” said North Linn’s Ty Pflughaupt. “My freshman, sophomore, junior years, I didn’t play as much, kind of got carried to state by others. Now that I’m a leader, it feels a lot better that I helped get this team to state.”

Recommended Reading

Photos: North Linn vs. West Fork in Class 1A boys’ basketball substate final

“The pressure is definitely there,” said North Linn’s Breckyn Betenbender. “(The streak) definitely is in the back of my mind all the time. But I also think that makes us practice harder. Everyone knows that you don’t want to be that team that ends the streak. That will be remembered. So we were just trying to keep that alive. We did. So now hopefully we can get down to Des Moines and make a run.”

The first-round opponent this year is unranked Woodbine (23-2), a game that will take place at 10:30 a.m. Monday, March 4 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Woodbine upset second-ranked Madrid in another substate final Saturday night.

“It’s amazing,” said North Linn Coach Mike Hilmer. “The kids keep coming. I thought of all the years, this was the one where we ran into more (obstacles). We had a couple of minor injuries, had some health issues, had some games where we didn’t play well. I’d be calling timeouts in the first quarter. But in all these cases, the guys responded. These last four games we have played our best basketball of the season.”

Senior forward Pflughaupt led North Linn with 22 points, with the other part of the Lynx’s regular two-headed offensive monster, junior guard Mason Bechen, adding 16. Seniors Betenbender and Jake Van Etten complemented them with 12 points each.

The other starter, junior Cole Griffith, had 10. That’s putting everyone in double figures.

  Buy Photo

North Linn’s full-court pressure defense can discombobulate any opponent, as it did this one. It seemed to tire out West Fork (20-5) toward the end of the first half and definitely in the third quarter, when the Lynx went on a 14-0 run that gave them a 20-point lead.

It was a 53-37 game after three quarters. West Fork got its deficit down to single digits a couple of times, taking more 3-point shots (28) than 2-point shots (25) in the game, a byproduct of trying to play catch up.

It was wide-bodies forward Gavin Cronk who led the Warhawks with 14 points and 11 rebounds. North Linn did a pretty good job on West Fork’s two leading scorers, guards Cayde Eberling and Sage Suntken, limiting them to 13 and 10 points respectively, both under their season averages.

“Our goal the whole game was to wear them out,” Pflughaupt said. “We were playing on a longer (college-length) court. After that first quarter, we could tell they were tired. They were bending over. But it was really the third quarter when they were bending over, were tired and starting to make bad passes, and I think we just knew we had them right there.”

Now we’ll see if North Linn (23-1) can maneuver its way to another state championship game. It has done that an unprecedented six years in a row.

“We definitely know about that,” Betenbender said. “But it’s one game at a time. You can’t get there if you win the one before it. We have that mentality. We’ve got to get to the quarterfinals, then the semifinals, then the championship. Right now, we’ve got to concentrate on the quarterfinal game, go from there. Then whatever happens, happens.”

North Linn 74, West Fork 59

AT DIKE

WEST FORK (59): Gavin Cronk 7-11 0-2 14, Cayden Eberling 5-11 0-0 13, Edison Maske 4-5 0-0 11, Jack Ward 2-10 0-0 6, Sage Suntken 4-13 0-0 10, Levi Ruckdashel 2-3 0-0 5, A.J. Andersen 0-0 0-0 0, Nolan Shreckengost 0-0 0-0 0, Xavier Baptiste 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-53 0-2 59.

NORTH LINN (74): Ty Pflughaupt 7-11 6-6 22, Jake Van Etten 4-6 4-7 12, Mason Bechen 6-16 2-2 16, Breckyn Betenbender 5-10 0-0 12, Cole Griffith 3-6 2-4 10, Hayden Schmidt 0-1 0-0 0, Drew Ries 1-3 0-0 2, Cael Benesh 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-53 14-19 74.

Halftime - North Linn 35, West Fork 27. 3-point goals - West Fork 11-28 (Cronk 0-1, Eberling 3-6, Maske 3-4, Ward 2-7, Suntken 2-9, Ruckdashel 1-1), North Linn 8-15 (Pflughaupt 2-3, Bechen 2-4, Betenbender 2-4, Griffith 2-3, Schmidt 0-1). Rebounds - West Fork 34 (Suntken 6), North Linn 25 (Pflughaupt 7). Total fouls - West Fork 15, North Linn 8. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - West Fork 16, North Linn 5.

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com