T-R PHOTO BY JAKE RYDER - From left, Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s Brandon Mathern, Michael Boyd and Austen Mathern (12) walk off the floor as Bellevue Marquette players embrace to celebrate a Class 1A semifinal victory, 57-45, over the Rebels on Thursday night at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

DES MOINES – Basketball has motivated a tight-knit group of Gladbrook-Reinbeck senior athletes from a young age.

The game can take as much as it gives, though, and that pain was visited on the Rebels in their Class 1A state semifinal on Thursday.

G-R made just one of 13 shot attempts in a difficult fourth quarter, fueling Bellevue Marquette’s 57-45 victory at Wells Fargo Arena.

The top-ranked Defenders (27-1) advance to face No. 2 Madrid in Friday night’s final. Gladbrook-Reinbeck bows out at 23-4, the senior class going out as three-time state qualifiers and reaching the semifinals for the first time since 2017.

“We’ve played together for probably 10 years now, and these guys are my best friends in the whole world,” G-R senior Michael Boyd said. “Being able to share this whole experience has meant everything. It wasn’t the outcome we wanted but you can’t control everything. It’s just been awesome and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

T-R PHOTO BY JAKE RYDER – Gladbrook-Reinbeck seniors Drew Eilers (33) and Michael Boyd (40) hoist the state semifinalist trophy after Thursday’s 57-45 loss to Bellevue Marquette at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

G-R led 43-41 after three quarters and was outscored 16-2 in the final eight minutes. Drew Eilers scored with 1:40 left in the game to make it 50-45 before the Defenders wheeled away to victory. G-R shot 15-of-32 (46.8 percent) in the first three quarters. Boyd led the Rebels with 18 points and nine rebounds. Eilers contributed 10 points and Hudson Clark added eight points with six rebounds.

“Sometimes the basketball just doesn’t bounce your way on the rim,” G-R head coach Brett Bengen said. “It’s a cruel game, but it’s what we sign up for. This is what we love to do, and we got to do it in the best venue in the entire state and under the brightest of lights.”

The teams exchanged leads nine times in all on Thursday, including six changes in a see-saw first half; G-R led 8-2 early, then fell behind 15-10 at the end of the first quarter. The Rebels surged to a 21-17 lead in the second, fell behind again 24-23 and bounced back for a 28-25 lead at halftime.

“It seems like it’s just a game of runs out here,” Marquette Catholic coach Isaac Sturm said. “Comes down to whoever can get stops and rebounds, and we’ve been fortunate to be the last team to do that so far.

“Defensively, G-R is just so long, the bigs have long arms … we’re trying to run our pick-and-rolls and we never get to the roll because there were I don’t know how many tipped balls tonight.”

Eilers sat out the second quarter with two fouls and came back refreshed in the third quarter, scoring six points in a 10-4 run to close out the third quarter with the lead.

After back-to-back empty trips for the Rebels in the fourth, Jacob Litterer pushed the Defenders back ahead with a three-pointer with 6:38 left, which ended up being the go-ahead bucket.

Even when the odds stacked against the Rebels offensively, they kept working, Clark said.

“We love winning and we love each other,” added Clark, a junior. “We knew we could win this one and we just kept playing for each other until those final seconds.”

Spencer Roeder led the Defenders with 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting, most of those points scored with Roeder carrying two fouls for most of the first half.

While they couldn’t get Roeder off the floor, having the 6-foot-5 Defender playing more passively was a boon to the Rebels.

“Most teams play off Hudson and he was able to get a lot of buckets going right at him there in the second,” Bengen said. “That second quarter, the group that was on the floor, played fantastic for eight straight minutes.”

Bengen switched things up by putting the taller Trevor Mathern on Roeder after Clark picked up his third foul early in the second half.

“We wanted to throw a few different looks at him and we were kind of rolling with what we had there,” Bengen said.

Thursday is a frustrating end for the Rebels’ hopes of capturing a state title for the school and follow in the footsteps of the 2015 team whose championship banner hangs proudly over the gym where this senior class has called home.

Starters Brandon Mathern, Austen Mathern, Drew Eilers and Michael Boyd, along with Cameron Sieh and Hunter Roberts, were instrumental not just in leading their teammates to the state semifinals but also in encouraging first-year head coach Bengen to take a chance on them.

“When Coach [Scott] Kiburis left, I wasn’t 100 percent sure what I was going to do,” Bengen said. “Quite a few of them came to me, put their trust in me and said ‘We want you to apply to be head coach,’ and I can’t say enough about these guys. I’m proud of them, and I told them in the locker room that I probably don’t tell them enough just how proud I am, how much I love those guys. I loved being around them.”

Hudson Clark will be the lone returning starter next year as a senior.

“Nobody works harder than this senior group,” Clark said. “They go hard in the weight room, and every optional thing we can do they make it mandatory. They do everything possible to be the best players they can be. … I hope the young guys look after that and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to have that dedication to the sport, too,’ and hope that we can just carry that on into next season.”