Rams headed to state
ATLANTIC - It has been 63 years since Glenwood last played in the Iowa State Basketball Tournament.
Make that, had been.
The Rams battled back from an 11-2 deficit to open the game and avenged two regular season losses to Denison with a 54-49 victory in the Class 3A, substate finals in Atlantic Monday to earn a bid to the state tournament for the first time since 1952.
“This is so big for this school and this community,” said Glenwood coach Curt Schulte after the game. “Words can’t explain how happy I am for this team, these fans and the people who supported this team. This is a great moment for Glenwood.”
The No. 8-seeded Rams (12-12) will take on top seed Williamsburg (22-1) in Tuesday’s quarterfinals. Tip off is set for 3:45 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Arena.
Against Denison, Glenwood opened the game in the diamond-and-1 press it had used this post-season with great success. The defense had Wyatt Schulz chasing Monarch’s second leading scorer, Parker Eller, and the other four Rams playing a 1-2-1 zone. But a pair of quick threes by 6-foot-9 Spencer Pauley and another by Cody Webb quickly had Schulte re-thinking his game plan.
“We didn’t expect Pauley to come in gunning away from the three point line,” Schulte said. “He knocked down two and we had to get out of our diamond-and-one. We went man-to-man at that point and I think that really got us back in the game. After that, I thought we were pretty good defensively.”
After getting down 11-2 early, Glenwood settled into its “red,” or man-to-man defense, the rest of the way. The Rams’ offense, however, would continue to struggle. Glenwood went nearly four minutes without a field goal and opened the game shooting 4-of-16 from the field but still found itself down just 19-16 on Schulz’s three-pointer with 2:45 to go in the half. Another three pointer by Ridge Fisher knotted the score at 21-21 before Eller, who had nine first half points, put Denison ahead 23-21 with a runner right before the halftime horn.
Schulte talked at halftime about a stronger start to the second half than the first.
“We knew coming out of the half we had to set the tone that first five minutes of the second half,” Schulte said. “We had to take the first punch.”
Schulte called an isolation play for Dylan Stouder on the opening possession of the third quarter and the senior delivered with a sweeping post move to tie the score at 23-23. The bucket seemed to ignite the Rams.
“That was a the momentum we needed,” Schulte said.
The teams would trade the lead seven more times in the quarter before heading to the fourth tied up at 36-36.
In the fourth, a three point play by Stouder and a runner by Andrew Blum put Glenwood ahead 41-38 with 6:15 to go. But the lead wouldn’t hold. The two teams would each take turns with lead twice more before Blum nailed a three pointer from the top of the key with 3:15 to go to put Glenwood ahead 46-42, its biggest lead of that game to that point.
A pair of free throws by Mitchel Kinsey and another by Pauley sandwiched around a Ram miss, cut the lead to 46-45 with 2:02 to go. But that’s as close at the Monarchs would get.
A thunderous two-handed dunk by the Rams’ Jacob Lewis put Glenwood ahead 48-45 with 1:34 to go. Stouder would go on to hit 5-of-6 free throws in the final 46 seconds to ice the win.
“Not only do the players fly off the bench, the crowd gets rocking,” Schulte said of Lewis’ game-changing dunk. “The dunk always gives momentum and it got us going. We get a couple big stops after that and Dylan hits his free throws. Those were huge.”
As the final seconds ticked away, the Glenwood bench exploded and was soon followed by a raucous Ram-friendly crowd.
The Rams entered the post-season as long shots for a state bid after dropping their final five games of the regular season. But a three game win streak by a combined eight points later, and Glenwood is a state qualifier.
“This team always believed,” Schulte said. “We lost a lot of close games during the regular season and you never saw this team give up. They knew, once we got going in districts we could do it. We knew we’d have a tough road and it was but we knew we had to chip away and take one game at a time and here we are, getting to the state tournament.”
Schulte commended the play of his seniors – Stouder, Lewis, Ryan Phillips, Fisher and Schulz – making key contributions in this historic run.
“Those seniors mean the world to me. They came up big and they were great leaders all year long. We lost five straight coming into the districts. A lot of teams would have hung their heads. These kids fought and believed.”