Flyers turn it up in second half

COLDWATER - The Marion Local Flyers did some dirty work in the paint on Thursday night, and it paid off with a 53-35 Midwest Athletic Conference victory over the Coldwater Cavaliers.

The Flyers swamped the Cavaliers on the glass by a 35-20 margin, and the extra possessions proved pivotal when the visitors turned a tight game into a blowout with a huge third-quarter surge.

Marion and Coldwater now sport identical 4-2 overall records as well as 1-1 MAC marks.

The first quarter of this one was utterly forgettable, with a combined 19 turnovers and a 27-percent shooting effort. The Flyers emerged with a 10-5 lead and then set about extending it in the second period.

Chelsea Winner and Brooke Winner took over underneath for the visitors and helped build a 17-5 advantage early in the quarter, but the Cavaliers came storming back. Sarah Kanney was held scoreless for the first 12 minutes of the game, but the sophomore scored on a layup and connected on a pair of three-pointers to whittle the hosts' deficit to just three points at halftime.

A jumper by Brooke Welsch brought Coldwater to within one early in the third, but it was all Marion from there. The visitors got points from six different players over the rest of the quarter in going on a 16-4 run. The resulting 40-27 lead was too large for Coldwater to overcome in the final frame.

"One of the things that we did was to limit them to one shot," stated Marion's coach Treva Fortkamp. "After the Fort Recovery catastrophe (a three-point loss last week) we talked about rebounding a lot and in the past two games we've rebounded a lot better. But I still want more of us to crash the boards. We can't rely on Brooke and Chelsea to do all the offensive rebounding."

Both Winners were big on the boards, with Brooke pulling down 10 and Chelsea grabbing eight. In addition to the overall rebounding edge the Flyers dominated on the offensive glass as well, ripping down 16 to just 5 for the Cavaliers.

"We talked about it at halftime," said Coldwater's coach Nick Fisher of his team's rebounding woes. "Obviously it was one of those things we wanted to clean up but I don't feel like we cleaned it up the whole game. (Rebounding is) not something that's been real solid for us, but we haven't faced the physicality or size that (Marion) has, either."

In addition to controlling the glass, the Winners also led the Flyers in scoring, with Brooke notching 18 and Chelsea scoring 15. Kanney's 12 points paced the Cavaliers.

After playing four games in eight days, the Flyers will now get a week to rest up before traveling to Waynesfield Goshen next Thursday to face the Tigers. The Cavaliers get back to action on Saturday when they head north to take on the Van Wert Cougars in a noon junior varsity start.