Still Rolling

MARIA STEIN - For the second time in three days, Marion Local faced a fourth-quarter comeback in a Midwest Athletic Conference game, and for the second time the Flyers pulled out the win.

Marion took a double-digit lead in the first quarter and held off a St. Henry charge in the fourth for a 59-51 boys basketball win at the Hangar on Friday.

"They're so hard to guard because they space you out so well," Marion coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "When that 3-ball's going in, there's some times you just feel a little bit helpless. But I thought we really defended well in the first half.

"I was disappointed how we reacted to their pressure in the second half. We've got to slow down a little bit, but we'll learn from that."

Trailing by 13 going into the fourth quarter, St. Henry (10-9, 2-4 MAC) finally found a groove. Jaden Lange hit a driving layup 14 seconds into the period, and after Jack Knapke answered for the Flyers, Evan Bowers sank a short turnaround jumper over Knapke, then stole the ball on Marion's next possession.

Bowers shot a three that bounced out of bounds off a Marion defender, and Sam Koesters hit a trey for his first points of the game to cut the lead to eight with 6:38 to play.

"Unbelievable effort, and give the kids all the credit for doing so," St. Henry coach Eric Rosenbeck said. "That effort allowed us to speed them up a little bit. And then obviously we made some big shots."

The Flyers' next possession ended when a pass to the corner went long and sailed past the baseline, and Seth Heitkamp the front end of a one-and-one to make it 48-41. Koesters grabbed the rebound on the second and drained a high-arcing three to cut the lead to four with 6:06 left.

But Marion (14-4, 6-1 MAC) responded in just 10 seconds. Tate Hess drove the lane, hit a layup while falling and drew a foul to set up a hoop-and-harm. With the free throw, the Flyers' lead was back to seven.

"There was a few times we looked like we were down and out, and our kids really battled and fought," Rosenbeck said. "When we got within four and Hess made that huge and-one, that really, really stung."

After nearly three scoreless minutes, Lange sank two free throws to make it 51-46, but Brady Ronnebaum drew a foul bringing the ball up the court to put St. Henry in the double bonus. Ronnebaum sank both free throws and Hess grabbed the rebound on a Heitkamp miss and got a bucket to make it 55-46.

Lange drained a trey with 2:24 left to cut the lead back to six, but from there the Redskins couldn't get the ball back without sending the Flyers to the line. Peyton Otte sank two free throws and Ronnebaum added another to make it 58-49.

Koesters hit two free throws with 1:33 left, but St. Henry couldn't get back on the scoreboard. The Redskins turned the ball over on a dribble out of bounds with 58.3 seconds left, and after getting it back on an errant Flyers pass, Bowers' trey was blocked by Knapke, and Bennett Gels missed a layup with Ronnebaum grabbed the rebound.

St. Henry got one final chance, but missed one last three before the buzzer sounded.

"Give St. Henry a lot of credit, because you just knew they weren't going to go away," Goettemoeller said. "They play really hard all the time. It was just a great game between two friendly rivals."

Gels drew first blood with a trey over Otte 1:10 into the game, but Jadyn Mescher tied it up a minute later from the top of the key. After Knapke hit a layup in the paint, Gels hit another three to put St. Henry back on top with 4:57 left in the first.

But from there the Redskins went cold. Knapke put back a miss by Otte 24 seconds later that put the Flyers in front for good. Otte hit a three over Gels when Knapke passed out of the paint, Knapke hit two free throws, Hess hit a trey on a pass from Hudson Rose and then added a bucket to put Marion up 17-6 after eight minutes.

"Our movement and our ability to see guys that are open and to get open, to cut, to make reads, there's these lulls," Rosenbeck said. "Then all of a sudden we get moving and we're flare screening, we're UCLA-ing, we're ball-screening. So we've got to get that cleaned up."

Knapke continued to befuddle the Redskins, scoring 11 points in the first half and finishing 9-of-10 from the line. As Luke Gels and Evan Bowers ran into foul trouble trying to defend the paint, Rosenbeck turned to 6-5 junior Dustin Quinter off the bench.

Quinter held his own until halftime, and the Redskins improved in the second half, but Knapke still finished with 17 points and pulled down 14 rebounds, including four on offense.

"Dustin's been practicing well, I thought he had his best practice of the year yesterday," Rosenbeck said. "Obviously Knapke's big, he's big, Evan was in foul trouble, Luke was in foul trouble. I thought he earned the right to get out there, and he gave us quality minutes."

After Marion stretched the lead to 16 with 2:18 left in the first half, St. Henry made a run, with Heitkamp sinking two deep threes in a row to cut the lead to 30-20 with 1:22 remaining. Flyers backup point guard Luke Pohlman got open on the left side and hit a trey of his own, drawing a big cheer from the crowd, and Marion went into the break up 13.

St. Henry gets a chance to get back in the win column on Friday with a trip to Delphos to face St. John's. Marion, coming off a stretch of three games in four days, gets today and tomorrow off before traveling to Parkway for another MAC game.

If the Flyers beat the Panthers and beat New Knoxville on the road a week later, they can split the MAC crown.

"We want to win a league title, we've got to win two road MAC games, and that's hard," Goettemoeller said. "And that starts with a good Parkway team on Friday. So we've got to have a good couple days of preparation and tee it up again."