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The drought is over for Linn-Mar
Lions qualify for the boys’ state basketball tournament for first time since 2012 with 62-50 Class 4A substate final win over West Des Moines Dowling
Mar. 4, 2025 10:47 pm, Updated: Mar. 6, 2025 2:01 pm
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MARION - They’re back, baby. They’re back.
Roar!
The Linn-Mar Lions are part of the boys’ state basketball tournament for the first time since 2012. A 62-50 win over West Des Moines Dowling in a Class 4A substate final Tuesday night assured the drought is over for a program that has always been good and produced countless high-level players in the 2000s.
“I’m just very emotional right now,” said Linn-Mar Coach Chris Robertson, fighting back tears. “I’m so happy for these guys. It’s hard, tough to win this one. They kept battling, kept battling and fought their way through. I’m just so happy for them. I wanted this so badly for them. Now they get to play another week. We’ll see what happens.”
The quarterfinal opponent for second-ranked and second-seeded Linn-Mar (21-2) is seventh-ranked/seventh-seeded Waukee (18-6) at noon Monday at Wells Fargo Arena. The teams played very early in the regular season, with Linn-Mar winning at home, 68-60.
Class 4A opens the tournament for the first time this year, with it proceeding in descending order class wise. Linn-Mar will go to state on the proverbial heater, a 15-game win streak.
“It’s everything, almost, I ever wanted,” said Davis Kern, who was great again with 27 points and 12 rebounds. “I mean, we’ve got some more games to go, but this feels amazing. We can enjoy this for a little bit, then we’re turning it around. We won our conference, but that was not all that we wanted. Won this game, but that’s not all that we want. We want everything. I think we have the team to do it.”
This win definitely did not come easily.
Dowling (15-8) led at halftime by eight points, 33-25, with the teams tied after three quarters at 40. Kern, who became the Metro’s all-time career scoring leader in his team’s substate semifinal win over Marshalltown last week, carried his team offensively for most of this game.
But his teammates really stepped up in the fourth.
A Payson Nietert 3-pointer from the corner gave Linn-Mar a 48-47 lead with 4:29 left, then Trey Wright scored in transition, Tyler Hilton powered an offensive rebound away from a Dowling opponent and scored, and Mason Matson capped off 12-0 run with a 3-pointer that gave the Lions a 55-47 lead with 2:10 left.
A very loud, large and vastly majority Linn-Mar crowd nearly blew the roof off of their home gym.
“At halftime, we were all down,” Matson said. “But as I’ve said before, you can’t get too low, you can’t get too high. Davis believed in us at halftime. None of us really did anything, but he kept saying ‘Keep your head up. Next play.’ That led us to getting confident, and that trust in us the second half was huge in helping us win this game.”
Kern ended up being Linn-Mar’s only double-figures scorer, with Matson and Hilton scoring nine each. Seven of Hilton’s nine came in the fourth quarter.
“I had a really rough night at the beginning,” said Hilton, a 6-foot-7 junior power forward. “But my teammates stepped up, especially Davis. That just opened it up for me, made me feel a lot better, gave me confidence. Just helped me play pretty good (late).”
Linn-Mar qualified for the state tourney nine straight years from 2004 to 2012, including 4A championships in 2004, 2007 and 2011. That’s a string that is second best all-time in the state (North Linn has tied it this season), behind only Iowa City West’s streak of 10 years in a row.
The Lions last lost January 4, to Ankeny in the Crossover Challenge at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse. The only other ‘L’ was in early December to Cedar Falls.
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AT MARION
WEST DES MOINES DOWLING (50): Maddox Coppola 1-8 0-0 2, Charlie Crane 1-3 0-0 2, Lucas Paoli 4-10 3-4 13, Nathan Jenkins 5-9 0-0 11, Noah Martens 6-13 2-4 15, Alfred Kolee 1-3 0-0 2, Giovanny Quiles 2-7 0-0 5, Quincy Moore 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 20-54 5-8 50.
LINN-MAR (62): Payson Nietert 2-5 0-0 4, Tyler Hilton 3-9 3-4 9, Davis Kern 9-16 7-9 27, Trey Wright 1-3 2-2 4, Mason Matson 3-7 1-2 9, Max Robertson 1-2 3-4 5, Karson Rains 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-42 16-21 62.
Halftime - Dowling 33, Linn-Mar 25. 3-point goals - Dowling 5-28 (Coppola 0-3, Crane 0-1, Paoli 4-10 3-4 14, Jenkins 1-4, Martens 1-7, Kolee 0-1, Quiles 1-6), Linn-Mar 6-12 (Nietert 2-3, Kern 2-5, Matson 2-4). Rebounds - Dowling 25 (Paoli 7), Linn-Mar 34 (Kern 12). Total fouls - Dowling 18, Linn-Mar 12. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - Dowling 8, Linn-Mar 9.
Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com
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