The stroke of midnight: Braves rally past Spartans in substate heartbreaker

For an underdog facing a Montezuma squad ranked fourth in Class 1A, Grundy Center played about as perfect of a first half as a team could hope for in Saturday afternoon’s substate final at the Marshalltown Roundhouse. The Spartans had no answer for a furious second half Braves rally, however, and the Cinderella run through the postseason ended in frustrating fashion for the senior-laden squad.
           
“I don’t know what happened. We didn’t have any less intensity. We wanted to win throughout the whole game. It’s just (that) sometimes things don’t work out the way you planned,” Grundy Center senior center Joe Johnson said. “But we never gave up from the start to the end.”
           
Thanks in no small part to a Herculean 25-point performance from sophomore guard Trey Shearer, Montezuma walked off the court with a 64-55 victory and snapped a five game Grundy Center winning streak in the process. The Spartans (12-11) held a 38-24 advantage heading into the locker room at halftime, but the Braves (21-1) used a 14-4 run in the third quarter to catapult themselves back into the contest.
           
“They hit some shots in the second half that they weren’t hitting in the first half,” Grundy Center Coach Joe Nelson said. “We got a little impatient there in the second half… But in an atmosphere like this, how do you expect 14, 15, 16, 17 year old boys to react to a crowd like this? It was a great atmosphere and a great crowd.”
           
The two teams played each other evenly for most of the opening frame, and after a Mitchell Munson drive off of an offensive rebound, Grundy Center cut the Montezuma lead to 15-13 at the first horn. Johnson, who led the Spartans with 22 points, established himself inside early and spearheaded a 21-3 run in the second quarter that put his team in the driver’s seat for the program’s first state berth since 2003.
           
“I was knocking down my shots, and they just kept getting me the ball at the right time. I’ve got a great group of guys that can get me the ball… They just happened to fall for me,” Johnson said. 
 
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