Remsen St. Mary's girls basketball takes down Martensdale-St. Marys in girls quarterfinals

DES MOINES — Remsen St. Mary's forced Martensdale-St. Marys to be one-dimensional on offense in pulling off a 52-33 victory over the Blue Devils in the Class 1A girls state basketball quarterfinals Wednesday at Wells Fargo Arena.

The No. 3 seed Hawks took control of the game in the second quarter and never looked back. They take a perfect 24-0 record into Friday's semifinals against No. 2 seed Newell-Fonda (23-2), a 68-30 winner over Calamus-Wheatland in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.

MSM finished its season with an 18-7 record.

"The kids are really gifted, we as coaches just need to do a better job of putting them in position to be successful," said MSM coach Tim Baker. "We needed to get a little deeper into possessions. In the second half, we did a better job of that, but they did a really good job in their half-court defense."

Here is what we learned from Remsen's 1A state quarterfinal victory.

Defense does the job for Remsen

Remsen St. Mary's was outstanding on defense all game long.

The Hawks held the Blue Devils to just 11 field goals and 30% shooting from the field. They limited MSM to just 4-of-18 shooting from 3-point range.

"We've been working hedging on their girls," said Remsen St. Mary's forward Claire Schroeder. "We knew they were a 3-point shooting team and we needed to come out and take that away and that would do it for us. Defense wins games."

The Hawks were also successful in limiting who could hurt them. Blue Devil point guard Brynnly German scored a game-high 19 points for MSM, but the rest of the team only mustered 11 points on 4-of-22 shooting.

German also had seven rebounds in the game. Carolyn Amfahr, Sophia Shannon and Carly Franey each scored three points for the Blue Devils.

Balanced offense helps Hawks pull away

Remsen did not have any trouble getting multiple players to make big contributions on offense.

Schroeder had 11 points and three rebounds, Carmindee Ricke posted 13 points, seven rebounds and five steals and Whitney Jensen added 10 points, five rebounds and three steals. Mya Bunkers added seven points and four assists, Hallie Bunkers four points and three boards off the bench and Halle Galles two points and six rebounds.

"We trust each other," Schroeder said. "We depend on each other, and we can all take care of the ball when we need to."

The Hawks only had four points in the first quarter. But patience paid off, as they went for 18 points in the second quarter and 30 in the second half.

"When we get down, you can't let that affect your game," Schroeder said. "You've just got to be calm about it and you've got to take it at them. We came out in the second half, and we were back in our groove. Everything was working for us."

Newell-Fonda up next for Remsen St. Mary's

Remsen St. Mary's is looking forward to its semifinal matchup with Newell-Fonda.

Newell-Fonda placed second to Bishop Garrigan in last year's state tournament and won the title in 2021.

"I'm pretty pumped about it," Schroeder said. "We've been thinking about playing them all season, so I think we can do it."

Remsen St. Mary's and Newell-Fonda will tip off at 3:15 p.m. on Friday back at Wells Fargo Arena.

Joe Randleman covers high school sports for the Ames Tribune. Contact him at jrandleman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeRandleman

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Remsen St. Mary's girls basketball earns quarterfinal win over MSM