Guthrie Center holds off IMS in Class 1A

DES MOINES ? IMS senior Ethan Gingerich got a shot to tie Monday?s Class 1A state quarterfinal in the closing seconds, but his 3-pointer clanked off the iron and unranked Guthrie Center held off No. 2 IMS for a 53-49 win.

?Right when I shot it I could tell it wasn?t going in,? a dejected Gingerich said after the game. ?I just had a feeling.?

IMS had clawed its way back from a 10-point deficit in the final four minutes of Monday?s game to have a chance to tie. Gingerich nailed a leaning desperation 3-pointer with 8.9 seconds left to trim the lead to three. With IMS scrambling to get a steal, senior reserve John Nicholson tipped a pass into the hands of senior Jackson Brokaw. Brokaw found Gingerich wide open, but Gingerich?s shot bounced off the rim.

?We did what we needed to do and got a quick steal. Jackson made a great exit pass to me. I had a great look at it, but I just wasn?t able to knock it down,? said Gingerich, who scored 18 points in his final game in an IMS uniform.

?They?re a tough team, but we held on,? Guthrie Center senior Dustin Clark said. ?We got lucky.?

Guthrie Center senior Brandon Clark made one of two free throws with 2.4 seconds remaining to seal the win for the seventh-seeded Tigers.

?He?s a veteran player,? Guthrie Center head coach Seth Poldberg said of Clark. ?He?s been there and done that. You could definitely tell that out on the floor tonight.?

Guthrie Center junior reserve Marcus Bolton?s old-fashioned three-point play gave the Tigers a 10-point lead with 3:47 remaining. But then IMS began chipping away at the lead. Gingerich hit a 15-foot jumper and then got a steal and made a pair of free throws. Clark made one of two free throws, but IMS junior Brian Hagedorn got an old-fashioned three-point play of his own to trim the lead to four with 2:25 left.

But IMS didn?t score for the next two minutes, and Clark went 3-for-6 from the foul line during that stretch to push the Tigers? lead back to seven. IMS sophomore Chance Miller hit a 3-pointer with 22.8 seconds remaining to cut the lead to four, but Clark made two free throws at the other end to push the lead back to six. Then Gingerich hit a 3-pointer to set up the frantic finish.

?I just didn?t think the clock was moving very fast there for a while,? Poldberg said.

?Given the state we were in, we couldn?t have asked for a better opportunity to go for a tie at the horn like that,? IMS head coach Dwight Gingerich said. ?I was really proud of how they hung in there and they executed the things that we wanted them to do down the stretch. Unfortunately, that last shot didn?t go.?

Ethan Gingerich?s final miss punctuated a tough shooting performance for IMS. IMS shot 42 percent (18-43) from the floor, but just 4-for-16 from beyond the arc. IMS entered Monday?s game hitting nearly 38 percent from outside.

?We just weren?t in sync the way we wanted to be offensively,? Dwight Gingerich said.

Meanwhile, Guthrie Center shot a blistering 62.5 percent (20-32) from the floor. Center Dustin Clark hit 10 of his 14 shots for 20 points, and Brandon Clark went 6-for-9 from the field and 9-for-14 from the foul line to score a game-high 22 points.

?We had a tough time containing their big guy down low,? Ethan Gingerich said. ?We tried to double team him and clamp him, but he?s so strong and athletic that we couldn?t stop him.?

IMS took an early 8-0 lead, but with Dustin Clark scoring inside and Brandon Clark hitting a collection of runners and leaners in the lane, the Tigers came back to take a 28-25 lead at the half. Dustin Clark scored three baskets inside as Guthrie Center opened the second half on an 11-4 run to open up a 10-point advantage.

The Tigers led by as many as 11 points in the fourth quarter, and still led by 10 with less than four minutes to go.

?We were probably a little too far [behind] too late,? Dwight Gingerich said. ?We ran out of time.?

Guthrie Center (20-7) advances to Thursday?s semifinal against St. Mary?s, while IMS ends its season with a 24-2 mark.

?We had a lot of fun this season,? Ethan Gingerich said, ?but it didn?t quite end like we wanted it to, though.?