North Linn rallies from double-digit hole to edge Alburnett, 54-50

TROY MILLS — When you win virtually all the time, it’s difficult to keep track of the specifics of some of the continuing streaks.

Like this one. How many home games in a row has the North Linn boys’ basketball team won?

You got a couple different opinions on that when asking around Tuesday night following NL’s 54-50 victory over Alburnett in a fine early season Tri-Rivers Conference game.

Someone in the know felt Easton Valley was the last team to beat the Lynx on their home court. Someone else thought it was Elkader Central in a game played directly after that aforementioned Easton Valley game.

The state’s official stats website (www.gobound.com) is money with accurate results of games over the years, but a little sketchy on where some games took place. That makes it difficult to give a specific number for North Linn’s ongoing home win streak.

But the consensus was “sometime in Ryan Miller’s freshman season,” referring to the former Lynx all-state guard. Turns out it was mid-December 2014 against Elkader Central.

That’d be 10 years ago. Unreal.

“We knew our game plan was just to tire them out,” said North Linn’s Cole Griffith. “Very similar skill gap there between the teams. We knew they could shoot, and they shot well at the beginning, and we really weren’t getting things going. As the game went on, we just increased the pressure slowly, and at the end of the game, they were a lot more tired than us.”

Alburnett had a 13-point lead midway through the second quarter of this one, 21-8, the Pirates perfectly following their game plan. That’d be control the tempo, not turn it over against North Linn’s pressure defense, take and make good shots offensively, control the glass and not let North Linn get its fast break going.

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Matthew Neighbor had 16 points and eight rebounds in the first half as Alburnett took a 24-18 lead to the break. But North Linn seemed to ratchet up its first-court pressure D another notch, and the next thing you knew, things were tied and remained tied at 36 going to the fourth quarter.

Mason Bechen’s banked 3-pointer from the top of the arc just before the third-quarter buzzer made it that way and seemed to give North Linn an emotional lift.

“I think I called bank,” Bechen said.

Though he really didn’t. He did, however, take over the fourth quarter, continually getting to the cup with lane drives.

Or pulling up for short jumpers after lane drives. Or kicking it out for open shots for teammates after lane drives.

The all-state guard turns the corner so quickly on his drives and has an uncanny ability not to get charging fouls. He finished with 34 points, 23 in the second half.

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Bechen had 44 points in North Linn’s first game this season and broke Jake Hilmer’s single-game scoring record with 48 points last week against Ed-Co.

“It was a good win for us,” said first-year head coach Travis Griffith, who was an assistant for years under Mike Hilmer, who left the school to become superintendent at Bellevue. “We’ve still got to learn offense. Mason is a beast, but we didn’t run an offense. Our motion offense is something new, because we normally ran a lot of set plays with Hilmer. I got away from a lot of that. We’re trying to get five guys touching it, and when you get a couple of ball reverses, now Mason is one on one. That’s all we talked about at halftime.

“Right now, the ball is staying on this side of the court, and it never gets moved. You’re throwing it right away to Mason, so now they see it. Get away from him, get him a screen and get moving off of that pass to Mason. If you get one reversal, now he’s going to have the lane. If he doesn’t, it’s a kick out to a wide-open shooter. That’s all we did the second half.”

North Linn built a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, but Alburnett hit several key 3-point shots to remain close. It was a 52-50 game with 33 seconds left, with the Pirates owning the basketball after a North Linn turnover.

The Lynx had fouls to give and gave them. Eventually Rylen Rozek took a 3-point attempt from the wing that missed short, the rebound going to Bechen.

He was fouled with 2.1 seconds left, made his two free throws, and that was it.

“I would say that first half we weren’t moving it much on offense,” Bechen said. “We kind of went into the locker room at halftime saying that we had to move the ball more. Move off the ball to get those double gaps. I think in the second half, we got those double gaps, we drove to the hoop and scored a bunch of layups. If we didn’t have that, we kicked it out for the wide-open 3.”

This was a unique game in that only seven players scored.

Bechen had 34 points, Griffith 13 and Drew Ries 7 for North Linn. Neighbor had 24 points, Rylen Rozek 10, Josiah Steen and Laken Caves 8 each for Alburnett.

“They hit some big shots,” Alburnett Coach Jeff Christopherson. “You know, we had some big shots in the game, too. We had some turnovers that maybe could have changed things around, but I told the kids you get to a substate game and this had the feel of that kind of atmosphere. Good fans, lots of cheering. Bechen had a couple of huge plays ... But that’s the way the game is played, and you’ve got to overcome those things. We’ll be fine.”

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AT TROY MILLS

ALBURNETT (50): Josiah Steen 4-8, Matthew Neighbor 10-17 1-2 24, Rylen Rozek 4-11 0-1 10, Laken Caves 2-5 2-2 8, Caden Bueckers 0-2 0-0 0, Hayden Gustafson 0-2 0-2 0, Zander Obert 0-0 0-0 0, Brody Kaestner 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 20-45 7-15 50.

NORTH LINN (54): Drew Ries 3-9 0-0 7, Cade Garman 0-3 0-0 0, Mason Bechen 12-20 8-11 34, Cael Benesh 0-2 0-0 0, Cole Griffith 6-11 0-0 13, Nolan Woods 0-0 0-0 0, Hayden Schmidt 0-4 0-0. Totals 21-49 8-11 54.

Halftime — Alburnett 24, North Linn 18. 3-point goals — Alburnett 7-21 (Steen 0-2, Neighbor 3-5, Rozek 2-8, Caves 2-2, Bueckers 0-2, Gustafson 0-1), North Linn 4-17 (Ries 1-5, Bechen 2-7, Benesh 0-2, Griffith 1-2, Schmidt 0-1). Rebounds — Alburnett 27 (Neighbor 9), North Linn 25 (Ries, Bechen 6). Total fouls — Alburnett 12, North Linn 14. Fouled out — None. Turnovers — Alburnett 15, North Linn 9.

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