A Solon stunner: Spartans shock Mount Vernon for trip to state

CEDAR RAPIDS — As the final few seconds ticked off the clock, a Solon fan seated right behind press row turned to a buddy in amazement.

'Can you believe this?' he asked. 'Can you believe this?'

Neither of them could. No one could.

'Who'd have thunk it?' said Spartans head coach Jason Pershing, after his team stunned Mount Vernon, 49-42, Monday night in a Class 3A substate final at the U.S. Cellular Center. 'Come on, man, who'd have thunk this?'

It might be the biggest shocker of the boys' basketball postseason, certainly the biggest surprise in the substate tournament. Mount Vernon won two regular-season games between these teams by a combined 44 points.

The Mustangs came in 17-6, Solon 9-14. But on the big stage, with a state tourney berth on the line, Solon simply played better, leading the entire game.

The Spartans obviously will be the eighth seed and a huge underdog again in Des Moines, drawing top-seeded Chariton (23-1) in a quarterfinal game Tuesday, March 8 at 3:45 p.m. But they don't care.

'It's crazy,' said Solon's Streeter McIlravy, who was brilliant in a 22-point outing. 'I don't know. We had a game plan, and we went right to it. The fourth quarter, they put some pressure on us, and we struggled a little bit. But towards the end, guys stepped up. It was a team effort.'

McIlravy, son of Iowa Hawkeye wrestling legend Lincoln McIlravy, scored 14 points, including a fadeaway 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Solon a 30-18 halftime lead. The spread was still 12 after three quarters, with Mount Vernon finally making an expected push in the fourth.

Related: Sons of an Iowa wrestling legend, Solon's McIlravy brothers choose basketball

An Austin Ash 3-pointer made it a 41-39 game with 3:28 to go. But Jacob Coons maneuvered for an inside bucket on the ensuing possession, Solon got back-to-back stops defensively, a free throw from Luke Ira and a putback from Halston Durr to make it 46-39 with 1:20 left.

Do you believe in miracles? Yes.

'We've had a lot of adjustments to make from last year to this year,' said Pershing, who replaced longtime head coach Brad Randall last season. 'This is Year Two, and, to me, Year Two is still Year One. You're trying to change so many different things. We took our lumps, but the Wamac Conference is so tough. Those adjustments we made tonight, we weren't buying into earlier in the season. This is just us saying that if we buy into this, we can have a lot of success. It was all defensive stuff. It was us buying into the defensive part. These last three games, we are just so much more dialed in defensively.'

Solon was 7-15 entering the postseason but beat four-win DeWitt Central and five-win Davenport Assumption in district play. Then there was this one.

Mount Vernon forward-center Connor Herrmann lit up the Spartans for 53 points in the two regular-season games but was held to just six points here. MV looked tentative offensively most of the game and ended up shooting just 31 percent.

Tommy Hook led the Mustangs with 20 points. Coach Ed Timm was asked if he could explain exactly what happened to his team.

'If I could answer that question, it wouldn't have happened,' he said. 'They played harder than we did. They deserved to win. They played really hard, they executed, they took away some of the things we wanted to do. They just deserved to win.'

'The first game against them, we just didn't play well,' Pershing said. 'They shot 70 percent from the 3-point line the first time we played them. There are always some variables, but the bottom line was we had a game plan, we decided we were going to make someone else other than Connor Herrmann beat us. He destroyed us the first two games.'

But this wasn't the first two games. Not even close.

Who'd have thunk?

AT U.S. CELLULAR CENTER

SOLON (49): Brevin Hill 1-4 2-4 5, Streeter McIlravy 9-15 0-0 22, Luke Ira 1-2 3-4 6, Ben Krutzfeld 1-3 2-4 4, Jacob Coons 4-9 0-0 9, Sterling McIlravy 0-0 0-0 0, Halston Durr 0-3 1-3 1, Adam Runyan 0-0 0-0 0, Dylan Doyle 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 16-36 8-15 49.

MOUNT VERNON (42): Connor Herrmann 2-7 2-2 6, Joe Corcoran 0-0 0-0 0, Adam Ketelsen 0-2 2-2 2, Austin Ash 5-16 2-2 14, Tommy Hook 5-9 8-10 20, Drew Adams 0-5 0-0 0, Marquis Dew 1-2 0-0 2, Zachary Krogmann 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 13-41 14-16 42.

Halftime — Solon 30, Mount Vernon 18. 3-point goals — Solon 7-13 (Hill 1-2, Ster. McIlravy 4-4, Ira 1-2, Krutzfeld 0-2, Coons 1-3), Mount Vernon 4-19 (Herrmann 0-3, Ketelsen 0-1, Ash 2-7, Hook 2-5, Adams 0-3). Rebounds — Solon 26 (Ster. McIlravy 6), Mount Vernon 27 (Herrmann 9). Total fouls — Solon 14, Mount Vernon 18. Fouled out — None. Turnovers — Solon 10, Mount Vernon 6.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com