Xavier comes up clutch late to knock off Linn-Mar

MARION — You saw little speckles of blood on Max Techau's gray jersey postgame. War wounds from a battle he and his Cedar Rapids Xavier teammates fought gallantly and successfully.

Everyone learned just how tough — and how good — these Saints really are Tuesday night, as they made all sorts of plays down the stretch for a 68-63 win over Linn-Mar.

'Couldn't be prouder of our guys,' said Xavier Coach Ryan Luehrsmann. 'The way they stayed composed and handled things down the stretch. It was a fun thing to see.'

Techau's baseline drive and reverse layup with 58 seconds left gave Xavier a 59-57 lead it would never relinquish. The 6-foot-7 junior center's long reach then helped force a Linn-Mar miss, and the Saints hit enough free throws from there to pick up a statement win, as the cliche goes.

Xavier (12-2) came in ranked third in Class 3A, Linn-Mar sixth in 4A.

'It's a great win to get,' said Techau, who had no equal on the interior in an impressive 21-point game in which he made 8 of 11 field goals. 'We know we're a good team right now, but we need to get even better ... This is a great win to build off of.'

Linn-Mar (9-4) held a five-point edge with just over three minutes to go, but couldn't finish things off. An 8-0 Xavier run gave it a 57-54 lead, with a Jordan Bohannon 3-pointer tying things up with 1:33 to go.

Bohannon — the Iowa Hawkeye recruit — was his usual terrific self, finishing with 26 points. But when you really look at it, Mitch Burger, the guy who guarded him the entire game, had 15 points himself, which is someone of a negation.

Burger made 5 of 6 free throws in the final 30 seconds or so as well.

'We knew (Bohannon) was going to score,' Burger said. 'It's just trying to slow him down. I thought we did a pretty good job throughout the game of slowing him down. In the end, he's going to get his buckets. We just had to limit them as much as we could.'

'We weren't very sharp tonight at both ends, I didn't think,' Linn-Mar Coach Chris Robertson said. 'In stretches, we were. We were playing hard, but we had too many little breakdowns. Defensively, we would get beat in transition. We'd get Burger contained, then we wouldn't get a hand up on a shooter. We let Techau catch it on the block. Just little things on that end. Then on offense, we didn't seem to have much flow. Jordan, obviously, did his thing and kind of willed us to be in the game. We just weren't sharp tonight.'

Matt Mims added 14 points and Jackson Joens 10 for Xavier, which got no points whatsoever from its bench. Jared Printy added 11 points for Linn-Mar.

In a two-point game with 27.1 seconds left, he appeared to pick Burger's pocket clean on a steal but was called for a foul instead. Burger made both free throws.

'They're one of the best teams in the state,' Mims said. 'We think a lot of people are sleeping on us, so we wanted to show that we're one of the best teams, too.'

AT MARION

C.R. XAVIER (68): Jackson Joens 4-9 0-0 10, Ryan Stulken 3-6 0-0 8, Max Techau 8-11 5-7 21, Mitch Burger 4-11 2-2 15, Matt Mims 4-12 4-9 14, Nolan Butkowski 0-2 0-0 0, Bryce Schulte 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-51 15-22 68.

LINN-MAR (63): Jordan Brandt 2-6 0-0 6, Beau Klostermann 3-9 0-0 6, Jared Printy 3-9 4-5 11, Riley Murphy 4-8 0-0 9, Jordan Bohannon 11-20 2-2 26, Reese Phillips 2-3 1-2 5, Tyler Voves 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-55 7-9 63.

Halftime — Linn-Mar 27, Xavier 26. 3-point goals — Xavier 7-21 (Joens 2-5, Stulken 2-4, Burger 2-7, Mims 1-3), Butkowski 0-2), Linn-Mar 6-22 (Brandt 2-5, Klostermann 0-2, Printy 1-2, Murphy 1-5, Bohannon 2-8). Rebounds — Xavier 31 (Mims 8), Linn-Mar 29 (Bohannon 6). Total fouls — Xabvier 10, Linn-Mar 16. Fouled out — None. Turnovers — Xavier 7, Linn-Mar 11.

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