Montezuma moves on in the Class 1A Girls State Basketball Tournament. The Bravettes defeated St. Ansgar 50-45 Wednesday night (3/3) in the State quarterfinals at Wells Fargo Arena. Montezuma led by seven at halftime, but St. Ansgar fought back to take a two point lead after three quarters. Montezuma converted 12 of 14 free throws in the final quarter to get their 23rd consecutive win of the year. Bravettes Coach Janel Burgess talked after the game.
“We had to keep our composure a little bit, we kind of lost it a couple of times. But let’s be honest, they’re seniors and they made some great plays and some tough plays. And we had to end up just fighting back a little bit. They’re going to give us their best punch and I thought we responded well by collectively staying together and not letting perhaps an offensive rebound putback or penetration by 11 (St. Ansgar’s Hali Anderson, who scored 19 points), which we know she’s going to do, affect us and just being able to move on to that next play and do what we needed to do.”
Elise Boulton led Montezuma with 29 points, with eleven of those coming in the fourth quarter. Burgess praised her senior point guard.
“Oh, just a good collective little competitor, isn’t she? It was very fun to watch her just orchestrate us a little bit and being able to still play tremendous defense and be able to take the right shots and be able to know when to get downhill, which she did very well in the fourth quarter.”
Montezuma is now 23-1 on the season. The Bravettes will face defending 1A State champion Newell-Fonda (24-1) Friday afternoon (3/5) at 4 in the State semifinals. You can hear that game on KBOE-FM with Friday’s live coverage starting at 3:45.
