Belle Plaine a hoops school now

CEDAR RAPIDS - For what was just accomplished, this was the most serene locker room you've ever seen.

Not a whole lot of whooping and hollering going on, no music blasting. It was just normal conversation, some quiet banter back and forth.

'We'll celebrate later,” Brant DeMeulenaere said.

The Belle Plaine Plainsmen had better do as promised. When you qualify for the state boys' basketball tournament for the first time, it's a really big deal, fellas.

Honest, it is.

A 79-69 win over Bellevue Marquette in an exquisite Class 1A substate final overtime thriller Saturday night at Cedar Rapids Prairie quickened the pulse of everyone but this calm, cool and collected group, apparently.

Belle Plaine (24-1) is the fourth seed at next week's state tournament, drawing Earlham (23-2) in a first-round game Tuesday afternoon at 12:15 in Des Moines. This used to be known as a wrestling school, but that might have officially just changed after this one.

'A lot of pride in changing it from wrestling to basketball,” said Belle Plaine's Trey Squiers. 'It feels good.”

'These kids, they just never quit,” said Belle Plaine Coach Justin Northrop, a 1985 BP graduate. 'I don't know if they're testing me or what. They just stay calm, do what they're told.”

Belle Plaine was just 10-12 last season but has hit the motherlode in 2014-15. It won its first South Iowa Cedar League championship in 39 years, and now this.

'We kept on fighting,” DeMeulenaere said. 'This was our goal from the offseason. We've worked and fought every day. I don't know, it just came together.”

A smooth-shooting sophomore, DeMeulenaere got Belle Plaine off to a quick start with a pair of 3-pointers. The Plainsmen led the entire game, in fact, until a minute into the fourth quarter.

That's when a Lucas Frank trey gave Marquette (19-5) a 48-47 edge. Another Frank 3 put the Mohawks up five, 57-52, with four minutes left in regulation, but Belle Plaine quickly countered with five straight points, including a clutch triple from DeMeulenaere to tie it back up.

He finished with seven 3s and 25 points.

'Early, the rim looked like it was about 10 feet around,” DeMeulenaere said.

'He's going to be a great player,” Northrop said. 'He's only a sophomore, I don't know if he truly knows what's going on, yet. It's going to be scary how good he gets with the weight room and just maturing. The kid shoots the heck out of it.”

The teams traded punches down the stretch, with Belle Plaine rallying from a 65-62 hole with under a minute left. Jordan Reineke, only in the game because center Justin Jacobi fouled out, had two huge offensive-rebound putbacks for the Plainsmen, the latter with 40 seconds left to put his team up 66-65.

Christian Michels made one of two free throws for Marquette to knot it at 66. DeMeulenaere missed a running baseline shot at the buzzer to send it to OT.

'All year, we've had some stretches where we'd get down big before half, or big early, stuff like that,” said forward Squiers, who had 23 points. 'We just keep battling, keep fighting, remember what our coaches tell us, what we've learned. That really helps us finish out games.”

Squires hit four straight free throws in overtime to put Belle Plaine up four. Trying to run out the clock in the final minute, BP's Jacob Ehlen took an inexplicable 3-pointer instead that swished through to make it 74-67.

That was ballgame.

'It was kind of like ‘Why did you just do that?'” Squiers said. 'Once it went in, I knew exactly why he did that.”

Ehlen finished with 13 points, the same as Jacobi. Frank had 28 points for Marquette

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AT C.R. PRAIRIE

BELLE PLAINE (79): Brant DeMeulenaere 8-15 2-2 25, Trey Squiers 5-8 13-17 23, Justin Jacobi 6-16 1-2 13, Jacob Ehlen 4-6 2-3 13, Josh Long 0-1 1-3 1, Vance Bohlen 0-2 0-0 0, Jordan Reineke 2-5 0-0 4. Totals 25-53 19-27 79.

BELLEVUE MARQUETTE (69): Karter Kilburg 2-6 0-0 6, Logan Schroeder 3-12 4-4 10, Lucas Frank 10-18 5-6 28, Ethan Yeager 0-4 0-0 0, Grant Kilburg 3-8 1-2 9, Christian Michels 3-7 6-9 12, Tanner Sieverding 0-5 2-2 2, Michael Peters 0-0 0-0 0, Colin Reeg 0-0 0-0 0, Trevor Stillmunkes 0-0 0-0 0, Alex Lundin 0-0 0-0 0, Michael Zhou 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-60 18-23 69.

Halftime - Belle Plaine 32, Marquette 25. End of Regulation - 66-66. 3-point goals - Belle Plaine 10-22 (DeMeulenaere 7-14, Squiers 0-1, Ehlen 3-5, Long 0-1, Bohlen 0-2), Marquette 7-26 (K. Kilburg 2-6, Frank 3-9, Yeager 0-2, G. Kilburg 2-4, Michels 0-2, Sieverding 0-3). Rebounds - Belle Plaine 40 (Squiers 13), Marquette 31 (G. Kilburg 7). Total fouls - Belle Plaine 20, Marquette 20. Fouled out - Jacobi, Schroeder. Turnovers - Belle Plaine 17, Marquette 12.

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