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St. Marys' Noah Payne (1) defends Marion Local's Austin Niekamp during Friday's game at Grand Lake Health System Court in St. Marys.
ST. MARYS - In a matchup highlighted by size, a guard from St. Marys made a sizable impact.
Four players on the floor stood 6-foot-7 or taller Friday night - two each for St. Marys and Marion Local - but 6-3 Noah Payne stole the show by scoring 10 first-quarter points and jumpstarting a 58-39 Roughrider victory at Grand Lake Health System Court.
Payne racked up 14 points for the now 4-1 Roughriders, who built a double-digit lead by halftime. Evan Angstmann was held well below his season average of nearly 25 points per game but still managed to tie team-high scoring honors with 14.
"Everybody knows Evan," St. Marys coach Dan Hegemeier said. "(Marion) knows him real well. We knew they were going to guard him hard. Sometimes when that happens, it leaves someone else open. Noah has the green light all the time."
He showed the reason why.
Payne held a 10-5 lead over Marion Local after six minutes of action. He went 4-for-4 shooting in that stretch. After one quarter, the Flyers trailed 12-7 and had five turnovers.
"We knew that (Payne) was a guy that we couldn't lose on defense, but we lost him a couple of times," Marion Local coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "One of those times was on a loose ball. Credit to him for stepping up and hitting big shots and getting them out to an early lead."
Marion Local's Jack Knapke is defended by St. Marys' Cobain Owens (5).
The Roughriders upped their lead to 25-13 by the intermission. They finished the half 9-of-23 shooting with only three turnovers. The Flyers went 5-for-25 shooting with nine turnovers.
Marion (1-1) trailed 38-27 after three quarters, despite Grant Kremer coming off the bench and splashing two 3s late in the frame. Austin Niekamp hit a trey to start the quarter for Marion, but Angstmann answered with a 3 of his own and St. Marys kept its lead above double digits for the remainder.
With five minutes left in the game, Angstmann caught a pass while running baseline, rose and had a one-handed poster-slam attempt clank off the iron. A teammate grabbed the miss and then flipped a pass to Angstmann behind the 3-point line for a triple. That shot extended the lead to 15 and crushed any hope left for Marion.
St. Marys' Jace Turner (22) is guarded by Marion Local's Andrew Pohlman.
"I was really impressed with the way we defended," Hegemier said. "I thought Evan and Jace (Turner) did an outstanding job against their bigs. Very, very proud of the way we defended."
"I think you've got to give Dan and his kids a lot of credit," Goettemoeller added. "I underestimated their length on the perimeter. They got a lot of tipped balls and really bothered us. Right now, we're just really inexperienced out front. We've got Mitch Ranly back from last year and our two big guys (Knapke and Niekamp), but everybody else played JV. The game was fast for them. St. Marys presents challenges to us that a lot of teams will not in the fact that they can match up with our bigs straight up. We haven't seen a lot of that yet."
St. Marys finished 21-of-48 shooting with eight turnovers. Marion went 13-of-46 with 15 turnovers.
Angstmann collected 10 rebounds. Cobain Owens netted 10 points for St. Marys while Jace Turner scored nine.
Niekamp was the lone Flyer to score in double figures with 11.
While Marion Local is back at it tonight at the Hangar against Anna, St. Marys will look to get Hegemier his 600th career victory next Friday at Spencerville with a 5 p.m. JV tip-off
