Strong second half helps lift Marion to boys’ state basketball tournament

NORTH LIBERTY — There was between two and three minutes left in the fourth quarter, and Alex Mota found himself headed to the free-throw line for a couple of foul shots.

As he grabbed the basketball and began dribbling in preparation of letting his first free throw go, the Clear Creek-Amana student section, in full throat throughout this Monday evening, went into the old “Overrated! Overrated!” chant.

It seemed odd since Mota, the 6-foot-1 junior guard, already had 20-plus points under his belt in this Class 3A substate final. That included the first two dunks of the season for the Marion super athlete.

Again, he’s just 6-1.

Marion was ahead fairly comfortable at the time. If the CCA kids were talking about football, well, the kid recently committed to play football at the University of Iowa where he’ll be a receiver.

Overrated? He was asked what he was thinking when he heard it.

“Nothing, really,” Mota said after Marion’s 75-62 win over CCA at Iowa City Liberty High School. “They do that stuff all the time. You take that to the back of your head, and, hey, take it out to the football field this next season. I’ll definitely remember that.”

But it’s a while before football season begins, and Mota and his boys have a more pertinent matter in which to attend. The Wolves take a 19-5 record to Des Moines next week for the Class 3A portion of the state tournament.

Marion’s quarterfinal opponent and game time won’t be available until Tuesday night because Davenport Assumption and Dubuque Wahlert still have to play a Tuesday night substate final. But the Wolves are in the big dance for the seventh time in school history, the first time since 2019 and the fifth time since 2009.

“I’m just proud of our guys,” said Marion Coach Pete Messerli, a Marion grad as well. “We beat a really good, competitive team with good players. It was a hard game, which all substate games are ... It feels good, but I’m exhausted, honestly. Really proud of them. We competed hard and stuck with it.”

There was a good offensive pace to this game most of the night. Clear Creek-Amana led after the first quarter, 23-21, with Marion taking a 37-35 lead at halftime.

Marion started to create a bit more separation in the second half, doing a better job defensively and forcing some Clippers turnovers. CCA made 12 of its 14 shots from the field in the first half, was at 67 percent at halftime but hit just 6 of 21 second-half shots.

“I thought Alex got going, and he gave us a little bit of a spark there,” said Marion’s Brayson Laube, who scored 20 points to surpass 1,000 in his three-year varsity career. “As a team defensively, we came out with a different mindset the second half. More of a lockdown. We always talk about operation shutdown, and that’s kind of what we live by lately.”

Mota finished with a game-high 25 points. Boede Rahe was a bigger factor offensively in the second half as well, and added 13 points.

“We were a little more solid defensively,” Messerli said. “It didn’t hurt us that (CCA guard Kyle) Schrepfer was in foul trouble most of the night. We made a lot of adjustments. I don’t mean disrespect, but their three, four and five guys were really hurting us the first half.”

Clear Creek-Amana (16-8) made one final push early in the fourth quarter, squishing Marion’s lead down to 58-54 with 5:30 to go. But back-to-back and-ones by Rahe and Laube moved the Wolves’ edge back to 10.

Ben Swails led CCA with 17 points, with Grant Kruse adding 15 and freshman Brody Clubb 14. Marion beat Clear Creek-Amana in their lone regular-season encounter, 77-61.

“I’m just really happy we won, no matter what,” Laube said. “I don’t really have my legs under me right now, but I’ll get them back this week. Just super happy to make it to state, man. That was the goal.”

AT IOWA CITY LIBERTY

CLEAR CREEK-AMANA (62): Harrison Rosenberg 0-2 0-0 0, Grant Kruse 4-9 5-7 15, Brody Clubb 5-8 4-4 14, Ben Swails 6-9 4-7 17, Kyle Schrepfer 3-6 1-1 7. Totals 20-42 19-24 62.

MARION (75): Myles Davis 1-4 4-4 6, Boede Rahe 6-9 1-1 13, Jordan Fischer 0-4 0-1 0, Alex Mota 9-13 4-4 25, Brayson Laube 8-18 4-8 20, Calen Claypool 2-3 0-0 4, Payton Hodges 2-7 0-0 6, Nathan Whalen 0-1 0-0 0, Kaden Frommelt 0-0 1-2 1. Totals 28-59 14-20 75.

Halftime - Marion 37, Clear Creek-Amana 35. 3-point goals - Clear Creek-Amana 3-12 (Kruse 2-5, Swails 1-3, Schrepfer 0-3, Freeman 0-1), Marion 5-23 (Davis 0-3, Fischer 0-3, Mota 3-6, Laube 0-5, Hodges 2-5, Whalen 0-1). Rebounds - Clear Creek-Amana 33 (Clubb 6), Marion 29 (Laube 7). Total fouls - Clear Creek-Amana 18, Marion 22. Fouled out - Schrepfer. Turnovers - Clear Creek-Amana 25, Marion 13.

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