For the third straight year, Montezuma’s boys won their opening game at the Class 1A State Basketball Tournament.  The Braves upset second seed Lake Mills 64-61 in overtime Monday (3/8) at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.  Lake Mills, which went into Monday’s game undefeated, found itself trailing by nine in the first quarter.  Then the Bulldogs rallied before Montezuma’s Trey Shearer hit a three at the halftime buzzer to tie the game at 40.  It was tied at 58 at the end of regulation, before the Braves’ Eddie Burgess made a pair of baskets to put Montezuma in front to stay.  Burgess talks about the victory.

“We hit shots.  We hit shots today.  Trey and Cole Watts nailed some shows.  We just really moved the ball around well today.  We knew what we wanted to get done, we got it done and it showed up on the scoreboard.”

Burgess had 14 points and nine rebounds for Montezuma, while Trey Shearer scored 25…including five three-pointers for the Braves.  Montezuma Coach Derrick Dengler gives his view.

“Probably the biggest thing was coming down to just executing defensively.  The guys working, working really hard.  We gave ourselves enough possessions and enough chances offensively to be able to ultimately win the game.  Of course, you need to make a couple of shots in these kind of games.  Execution is key and hopefully you can get enough opportunities to win.”

Montezuma improves to 23-2 on the season.  The Braves face Grand View Christian in the 1A semifinals Wednesday night (3/10) at 8. You can hear the Montezuma boys at State on KBOE-FM.