KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and SportsThe Game That Wouldn't End; The longest game in Iowa history

The Iowa High School Athletic Association is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the boys state basketball tournament this year. Over the past century, there's never been a game like the one that took place in Early, Iowa, 30 years ago this month.

That's when Lytton and Crestland of Early played the longest, and maybe the wildest game in Iowa history.

The gym was full that night, February 2nd, 1982. At the end of regulation, Crestland held a two-point lead, and Lytton had to go the length of the floor with little time left.

"At twenty after nine I turned to my assistant and said 'This game will be over in five minutes'," said former Crestland head coach Tom Gates. "My point of view was that we were playing well enough and we were going to win it."

Lytton head coach Larry DeRocher called for a lob to center Robert Kruckenberg, but one of Lytton's best players had other ideas.

"Danny Peyton was famous for not really doing, necessarily, what we wanted him to do," said DeRocher. "I know in my own mind, that was a shot. He had no intention of passing that thing to Kruckenberg. Every paper said it was a lob pass or a Hail Mary pass. No way. He meant to make that."

The half-court shot sent the game to overtime tied at 63. The three-pointer didn't become a rule in Iowa until the next season so there was much more basketball to be played and Crestland's Paul Kerns would provide more dramatic moments.

"It wen a couple of overtimes and I think I hit one from three-quarter court to send it to the fourth overtime and from then on it was just nuts," said Kerns.

Kerns hit another long shot from above the top of the key to send the game to the eighth overtime.

"It seemed like you played harder and harder as it went on," said Kerns. "Everybody wanted the ball because, I mean, everybody's shot was going in there for a while."

"You're thinking, 'this game's never going to get over'," said John Jennett, a Crestland junior in 1982. "It got to the point of almost being ridiculous as you're getting into the fifth, sixth, seventh overtime. It wasn't 'Oh my God I hope we're going to win', it was like 'this is the greatest game I've ever seen'."

"My concern was, am I going to have enough to finish the game?", said Gates.

While Crestland had three starters foul out, Lytton had their own problems. Junior point guard Arnie Koeppen was injured at the end of regulation.

"I remember coach DeRocher saying 'get in the huddle, get in here'," said Koeppen. "I said I can't. If I stop walking on it, it cramps up."

"I said 'can you play' and he said, yeah, yeah," said DeRocher. "He played 9 overtimes on a broken ankle."

"The longer I played it didn't seem to bother me," said Koeppen. "But the next day it was broken and I had it in a cast."

The game ended in the ninth overtime when Tim Helmbrecht hit two free throws to give Lytton the 96-94 win. Nearly three hours after it had started, the longest game in Iowa high school history was finally over.

"I just remember the parents from Lytton came down out of the stands and they were congratulating everybody," said Kerns.

"The parents from Crestland were all coming out of the stands and congratulating all the Lytton kids."

"I don't think either team really realized whether they had won or lost at that point, it was just over," said Roger McKinney, a Lytton sophomore in 1982.

"After the game it was just a big mess out there," said DeRocher. "It was both teams. They played their guts out."

"I said 'we lost the game', said Gates. "But you did something...there are going to be thousands of basketball players that will never say, we played in a game like this."

The Crestland-Lytton game is still the fourth longest game in U.S. high school history. Articles about the game appeared in newspapers all over the country, including the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times.

Crestland and Lytton had played two weeks before, in Lytton and Crestland won that game, 56-54, also in overtime.