The Roland-Story Norsemen boys basketball team made the trip east on Saturday night, to take on the Hudson Pirates in the Class 2A, Substate 3 final at the Marshalltown Roundhouse at Marshalltown High School. The winner would advance to next week’s state tournament.
It was a better start for the Norsemen on Saturday then their Tuesday night win over South Hardin, as Roland-Story led 11-8 at the end of the first quarter. In the 2nd quarter, Roland-Story’s three-point shooting came to life as the Norsemen buried 6 three-pointers in the frame to take a 33-20 halftime lead.
Darrin Berggren’s squad came out in the 2nd half and continued to force the issue, running the lead as high as 18 points in the 3rd quarter, before the Pirates began to storm back, with Roland-Story leading 42-37 after the 3rd. In the 4th quarter, Hudson completed the 18-point comeback, taking a 45-44 lead halfway through the frame. But as they’d done all year, Roland-Story found the stops when needed, and key buckets from Luke Patton and Jonovan Wilkinson gave them the lead back, before Boaz Clark’s two free throws with 2 seconds left gave Roland-Story a 55-51 win and their second consecutive state tournament appearance.
Boaz Clark and Jonovan Wilkinson each finished with a game-high 15 points, as Clark was named the Jewell Market Player of the Game. Camden Davis led Hudson with 14 points. Roland-Story was assigned the 2-seed in the Class 2A State Tournament, and will open their run on March 7th at 10:30 AM as they take on 7th-seeded Carroll Kuemper out of the Hawkeye 10 Conference.