HTC cuts down nets in district championship

OTTUMWA — Holy Trinity boys basketball coach John Hellige is a big proponent of team-building exercises.

One of the things Hellige did with the Crusaders this season was take them on a road trip — get a good meal, and then watch North Mahaska play.

“I had a premonition we might be seeing them (in the postseason),” Hellige said.

He was right. The Crusaders got the Warhawks in Tuesday’s Class 1A district final.

And when it was over, Holy Trinity got another team-building exercise — cutting down the nets.

The 70-66 win sent the Crusaders (19-5) into Saturday’s substate final against Winfield-Mount Union (19-2) in Fairfield, with the winner advancing to the state tournament.

“We all had that mindset of, ‘Why not us?’” said senior Conner Gehling, whose 3-point play gave Holy Trinity its final lead of the game, and also had two key blocked shots in the final minutes. “I really can’t put it into words. It’s one of the greatest feelings I’ve had in basketball.”

“It’s all the effort these guys have put in through the years, especially this year in the offseason, in the summer, and then during the season,” Hellige said. “These guys have worked their tails off, they bought into the system. Just a great group of kids. It’s so rewarding to see them rewarded, if that makes sense.”

The Crusaders took a road trip on February 8 to North Mahaska to see the Warhawks play Martensdale-St. Mary’s, just to get a feel of what they could see in the postseason.

“We just took the night off from practice, stopped and ate in Oskaloosa, then went on to New Sharon,” Hellige said. “We just kind of snuck into the gym, hung out in the corner.”

It was important, Hellige said, to get a feel of a team that Holy Trinity hadn’t seen before.

The statistics for the Warhawks also gave the Crusaders an idea of what they might be facing — 232 of North Mahaska’s 653 field goals were 3-pointers.

The Warhawks did get nine 3-pointers, but the first one didn’t come until midway through the second quarter.

“I think tonight was just effort,” Hellige said. “Effort and execution. I thought we did a good job of limiting them to nine threes, which is a lot of threes, but that’s just a gunslinging team. We watched game after game after game where they’ve hit 20, 25 threes, something like that. It was super important that we played tough man-to-man defense and make them beat us off the bounce, which they did a little bit too.”

Holy Trinity led by as much as 13 points in the first half, but North Mahaska kept making runs that would cut into that margin. The Warhawks eventually tied the game with 3:19 left on a 3-pointer by Lucas Nunnikhoven.

But Gehling came back 13 seconds later with a drive to the basket, scoring as he was fouled. His free throw gave Holy Trinity a 60-57 lead.

Gehling then came up with blocked shots on the Warhawks’ next two possessions, sandwiched around two free throws from Holy Trinity’s Adam Sobczak.

“I knew we needed stops,” Gehling said. “Once we got stops, then we got rebounds and we got going again.”

“Guys like Conner and Maddox (Rung), who have been around for three or four years at the varsity level, when things are getting tough you can expect Maddox to get a steal, or Conner to get you a rebound or a blocked shot,” Hellige said. “You expect big things out of your seniors.”

Holy Trinity clinched the win with 10 consecutive free throws over the final 2:44.

Luke Hellige led Holy Trinity with 21 points. Layne Rung had 18 points. Gehling had 15, and Adam Sobczak added 12.

“We knew they were really good 3-point shooters, so we knew they were going to hit some,” Gehling said. “But we were going to hit some. Layne and Luke, they were hitting on all cylinders tonight. We got the last run of the game, and that’s the one that matters the most.”

Hellige recalled one other team-building exercise the Crusaders did before the game.

“I thought one of the cool comments that they made was, ‘Hey, let’s win it for all of the teams in the past who didn’t get this opportunity, or maybe had a district final opportunity and didn’t capitalize. Let’s win it for those guys, for the alumni from (Marquette and Aquinas), and Holy Trinity.’” Hellige said. “I thought that was pretty mature.”

Now the Crusaders are a step away from the state tournament.

“One more,” Gehling said. “One more. Got to finish.”