Tribe turns up pressure to beat Flyers

FORT RECOVERY - The Queen and David Bowie song "Under Pressure" began playing Tuesday night at the conclusion of the Marion Local and Fort Recovery game.

It was the soundtrack to Marion Local's night.

The defending Midwest Athletic Conference champion Flyers found themselves under pressure all night and were knocked from the unbeaten ranks by the Indians with a 45-31 loss at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

"We weren't able to handle the ball," said Marion Local coach Beth Streib, whose team finished with 26 turnovers. "I told them other teams are going to see it and we're going to be facing it all year. Losing Allie Thobe, people know that we have a new point guard coming in. Hopefully we can handle it."

Jocelyn Kaiser scored eight of her game-high 13 points to lead the Indians. Whitney Will added 10 points as the Indians connected on 44.4 percent of their field goal attempts.

"We thought (Jocelyn) was going to be a leading scorer of ours and she's been struggling," Fort Recovery coach Brian Patch said. "I think it's been more mental than anything, trying to rush and force things, knowing she needs to score a little bit. Tonight I thought she just came out and played relaxed. She had a different look to her. I thought she played really well for us."

Carley Stone was Fort Recovery's defensive tone-setter, sticking to the Marion Local backcourt like glue and finishing with three steals. Stone also added seven points and six rebounds.

"I thought Carley Stone set the tone defensively for us," Patch added. "The thing I really like about what she did was we're trying to play fast, but on offense, we're trying to play under control. I thought Carley did a good job tonight of pushing it and also pulling it back and making good decisions and being smart with the ball."

The Indians built an 8-2 lead with 4:15 left in the first quarter after Kendra Siefring stole an inbound pass and found Grace Thien for an easy bucket. The Flyers, though, overcame nine turnovers in the stanza and finished with a 6-2 run to cut the lead to 10-8 by the end.

The lone tie of the game came in the first minute of the second quarter when Allie Prueter made a layup. The Indians bounced back with a 6-0 run, keyed by two Kaiser buckets and a steal and layup by Kiah Wendel. They took a 23-16 lead into the locker room.

The second half began a lot like the first half for the Flyers, who had three turnovers in the first 1 1/2 minutes. Stone had two steals to begin the half, finishing easy layups both times to put Fort Recovery in solid control, 30-18. The Indians outscored Marion 16-2 in the quarter and never looked back.

"I thought (the defense) was the key to the game," said Patch, whose team returns to the court on Thursday at Delphos St. John's. "We did our scouting report on them and I thought our guards came out in the first three quarters and didn't necessarily play flawless but played well enough to cause some problems and some havoc on them. Creating points off of turnovers is important, and that's what we wanted to do in the game, use our athleticism and our quickness. I thought we did a great job of doing that tonight."

"Tonight wasn't our night," Streib said. "You have to give credit to Fort Recovery. They came out and they pressured us and they were able to capitalize off of that."

Emily Mescher scored a team-high 11 points for Marion and Rose Berning added eight.

The Flyers expect to see a similar type of pressure defense when they meet up with Connie May and the Coldwater Cavaliers on Thursday in Maria Stein.