Gladbrook-Reinbeck senior Zach Pierce shoots over East Marshall’s Nate DeBondt (10) Friday in NICL West Division play in Le Grand. Pierce scored a season-high 22 points and surpassed the 1,000-point mark for his career to help the third-ranked Rebels win 90-49. Photo by Tyler Strand

LE GRAND – The Rebels’ size and the Mustangs’ outside shooting posed problems for the opposing defenses in the first half Friday.

Gladbrook-Reinbeck’s inside advantage won out in the third quarter.

Earning trips to the line on seven of its first eight possessions, the Class 1A No. 3 Gladbrook-Reinbeck boys basketball team overpowered East Marshall in the second half for a 90-49 victory in NICL West play.

Zach Pierce scored a season-high 22 points and surpassed the 1,000-point career mark, while Joe Smoldt added 17 points and Luke Holman buried four treys for 16.

“It’s a very hard matchup for (East Marshall) because we’ve got a couple big guys inside but it’s a strange matchup for us because they’ve got five guys who can shoot and they penetrate pretty well,” G-R coach Scott Kiburis said. “We weren’t getting out on their shooters and we knew a couple of them were really good.”

The Rebels led 36-29 at halftime before outscoring the Mustangs 31-10 in the third. Cam Kickbush opened the frame with a trey and Pierce and Cameron Clark combined for four straight three-point play opportunities. After the Rebels started dominating inside, their outside attack kicked in as Holman, Kickbush and Smoldt buried back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers to stretch the margin to 63-39.

The Rebels (8-0, 7-0) took a 67-39 cushion into the final frame and Holman’s first of three straight 3-pointers set the continuous clock in motion as the Rebels connected on 10 shots from beyond the arc.

“(East Marshall) played pretty well in the first half,” Kiburis said. “In the second half we got the ball inside, we got a lot of fouls called early and so we got a lot of free throw opportunities. We did a good job getting it in and then we took advantage of having outside opportunities.

“That third quarter we played really well, that’s kind of a problem we’ve been having. We don’t put a complete game together and so we’re not going to be able to come out with that outcome every game if we don’t put the whole game together. That’s what we’re working on.”

Kickbush and Clark scored 10 points apiece as the Rebels finished with five players in double figures. Austin Briney paced East Marshall (2-7, 1-6) with 14 and Dru Boliver added 13.

The Mustangs trailed 28-16 late in the second quarter before Boliver and Briney sliced the deficit in half with a pair of treys. Tyler DeBondt hit one more and his older brother, Nate, scored on a putback to trim the gap to 32-27. Pierce, who came into the game with 998 points in his career, added two late buckets to give G-R a seven-point lead at the break.

Both he and Clark took over in the third as the Mustangs had no answer for the tandem’s size and aggressiveness inside.

“They’re just a lot more physical than we are and they were able to inflict that physicality upon us in the second half,” Mustangs coach Cole Anderson said. “They missed a lot of wide open shots in the first half so that kept us close. We did shoot a lot better in the first half, then the second half we kind of came out and we were a little dull and our defense showed it. We didn’t close out on people and we weren’t playing tough so they buried us underneath our defense.

“We just have to work harder and play harder.”

Pierce reached the 1,000-point plateau at the 4:20 mark of the first quarter on one of his many baskets in the paint. The senior frequently drew multiple defenders and it’s something he’s been doing throughout his now 1,020-point career as a Rebel. Pierce scored 160 points as a freshman, 371 as a sophomore and 373 as a junior, while raising his senior total to 116.

“To accomplish that is fantastic, he’s only one of a couple people in the school who’s ever done that,” Kiburis said of the 1,000-point mark. “He’s very much a team player. He’s drawn a lot of attention this year and other people are getting opportunities to knock down shots. He’s not getting as many opportunities to shoot because of that, because he has scored 1,000 points in his career.”