Tigers make history as unbeaten state basketball champions

  DES MOINES - There was a brief period on Friday night where a 10 point lead disappeared for the Madrid Tigers against top ranked Marquette Catholic in the 1A state championship game. Instead of rolling over, the Tigers, as they have all season long, showed their resolve and took over down the stretch to make history. Madrid, for the first time in school history, claimed a state basketball championship, downing the Defenders, 59-57 to cap off an unbeaten season.

  “Pretty amazing, it still hasn’t sunk in quite yet,” Madrid coach Brian Surratt said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time off to realize ‘holy crap, we just did that.’ I mean, it’s such an amazing feeling and an amazing feat. I can’t believe we get to say we’re state champs.”

  The only unbeaten champion this season.

  “This is what we’ve been working for all year,” Fabian Ortiz-Alaniz said. “This is exciting to be here and make it happen.”

 Sophomore Emerson Bridgewater also said the same as Ortiz-Alaniz.

 “It feels amazing,” he said. “Everything I’ve been dreaming of for months all came true.”

  Toryn Severson, like his teammates, knew exactly how winning the state championship felt.

“It feels really good,” he said. “All those late nights playing basketball, scrimmaging each other, doing drills, all paid off. Our ultimate goal was to win a state title and it feels great to do it. I can’t wait to rest during spring break, that’s all I can say.”

The opening handful of minutes were frantic as both teams were amped up and attempted to settle their nerves. As they have all tournament, Madrid struck first with a Toryn Severson bucket and started the game on a 9-0 run. Marquette Catholic didn’t score until a shade under three minutes to play, the Tiger defense causing all sorts of issues for the top ranked team in the class. Madrid held a seven point lead going to the second period, 15-8.

  Madrid continued to lean on two of their seniors in Toryn Severson and Fabian Ortiz-Alaniz in the second period, both scoring key buckets through the period as Madrid grew their lead to 13 points and kept Marquette Catholic from getting within seven for the rest of the half. Madrid went up 10 at the break, 31-21 thanks to a huge three by Ortiz-Alaniz, sending the orange and black faithful into a huge frenzy.

 However, when you play the top ranked team, they will not simple go quietly into the night. The Defenders found their game to start the second half and tortured Madrid as their leading scorer, Spencer Roeder, got free on screens and became a walking heat check, helping his club take the lead over the Tigers with under three minutes left in the third.

 “This is how these games go,” Surratt said. “There’s going to be ebbs and flows. We can get up, they can come back, we can get down and come back ourselves and that’s exactly what happened. In the end we made the plays we needed to make.”

 Madrid fought back by buckling down on defense in the last two plus minutes in the quarter. An Emerson Bridgewater jumper gave them the lead late in the period as it was 44-42 going to the final eight minutes of the season.

“We knew we just had to communicate better on screens cuz I was getting stuck on screens,” Bridgewater said of how they responded late in the third period. “We just had to work over screens and get a hand in the shooter’s face.”

  A three by MC’s Jacob Litterer early in the fourth put Madrid down a point but Toryn Severson stepped up and gave Madrid the lead back. The Defenders tied it up on a Litterer free throw with 5:21 left to play. Madrid went to work over the next few minutes.

Toryn Severson hit a pair of free throws, Bridgewater scored on a layup, Jevyn Severson got a jumper, Ortiz-Alaniz scored on fadeaway shot and another Jevyn Severson layup finished a 10-0 over a four minute span to put the Tigers up, 56-46.

 Marquette Catholic mounted another counter to Madrid. A triple by Louis Gonner and another by Roeder cut Madrid’s lead down to five. The Defenders got it down to three with 23 seconds to play, but a free throw by Jevyn Severson made it a four point game. A Brody Buck freebie pushed it to five with nine seconds left. Roeder made a triple late but Marquette Catholic was out of timeouts as Madrid never had to inbound the ball to clinched their first ever state championship.

 “Honestly, I just kinda went blank, I just stood there,” Surratt said of the final horn going off. “Went and got my water bottle, didn’t even celebrate. I just can’t even believe I’m a part of something like this, I’m so very lucky.”

The celebration was when the Tiger players and coaches came off the bench as their season long goal was finally accomplished and the heartbreak from a season ago was finally put to rest.

 “Very happy, I was very emotional and started crying,” Ortiz-Alaniz said. “This is what we’ve been working for.”

 Bridgewater felt it hard to put into words being able to hold the trophy.

  “I don't even know how to explain it,” he said. “I didn’t feel like it was real.”

In the postgame celebration, the 1A All-Tournament team was named. Buck picked up a spot on the team along with Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s Michael Boyd, St. Edmond’s Hunter Horn, Marquette Catholic’s Spencer Roeder and the captain, Toryn Severson.

  “It felt great,” Severson said of being the All-Tournament team captain. “I’ve always wanted to prove I was the best player in this class and I did that this tournament. I’ve been working towards it forever.”

Toryn Severson led Madrid with 21 points to go with six rebounds and two blocks. Ortiz-Alaniz added 18 points and went 4-for-6 from three-point distance. 

“He (Fabian) played an amazing game, that’s what we were hoping to get out of him,” Surratt said. “I’m so proud of him.”

 “My teammates kept me confident,” Ortiz-Alaniz said. “Kept telling me to shoot so I let it fly.”

 Toryn Severson noted Ortiz-Alaniz was a big reason why they were able to win a state championship with his ability to score and play the game so well.

  Bridgewater had eight points, four rebounds and slowed down Spencer Roeder all night. Jevyn Severson had seven points and seven boards as Buck picked up five points and eight rebounds.

 “Emerson did an amazing job these last two games. He’s been the MVP of our team,” Surratt said. “He shut down their better players in the St. Ed’s game and today he did a really nice job on Roeder who is such a quality basketball player. Very proud of Emerson. He came on when we needed him to and did such an awesome job.

 The Defenders were led by Litterer’s 19 points. Bridgewater held Roeder to 13 points on 5-for-14 shooting.

  “It definitely wasn’t easy,” Bridgewater said of defending Roeder. “He’s a really good basketball player and I was locked in from the get-go. As soon as I woke up this morning, I knew what I had to do and I executed.”

 Madrid made 51 percent of their shots to Marquette Catholic’s 38 percent. The Defenders made six more threes than the Tigers to stay in the game. Madrid had 31 rebounds to MC’s 32.

  The Tigers finished their season with a perfect 28-0 record and the 1A state championship trophy.

  They bid farewell to six seniors, three of them leaving a lasting impact in the history books of Madrid boys basketball: Fabian Ortiz-Alaniz, Brody Buck, Toryn Severson, Logan Klatt, Aiden Bauer and Alex Ramirez.

 “This is the best way to possibly end our career here,” Toryn Severson said of the senior class. “It means a huge deal. We’ve all put in a large amount of work towards this. We’ve all played with each other for I don’t know how long. Even the ones that don’t play as much, they have an important part in getting us ready for games and practice, They definitely contributed to this state title and it felt great.”