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13.4 PPG, 4.8 Rebounds, 2.1 Assists, 2.3 Steals
Coming off a regional tournament run, Marion Local had to replace five seniors and lost one of its top guards, Chloe Ronnebaum, to injury before the season began.
Nonetheless, the Flyers repeated as Midwest Athletic Conference champions, made another postseason run and got a game farther in 2024. On the court, it was junior Avae Unrast who picked up much of the slack, and she is The Daily Standard's girls basketball player of the year.
"It made me step up and be more of a leader on the court," she said. "We had a bunch of freshmen coming in, so I had to be there for them and let them know how it is, really just get everyone on the same page."
Unrast averaged 10.7 points per game as a sophomore and was named to the All-MAC first team and the All-District second team.
This year, she raised her scoring average to 13.4 points per game and added 2.3 steals and 2.1 assists. But she came back to leadership as the area she improved the most, particularly citing the examples of Sammy Hoelscher and Lindsey Koenig in her first two years.
"As a point guard, you have to be more vocal, and I feel like as an underclassman last year and my freshman year, I was kind of more scared of the upperclassmen," she said. "But I knew going into this year, Chloe being hurt and not having much senior experience, I definitely needed to be more vocal on the court and assist people."
The Flyers opened the year 11-2, with Unrast scoring double-digit points in every game. Against Wapakoneta on Dec. 16, she posted a season-high 21 points.
In January, they hit the one slow patch of the season, falling by five to Waynesville at the Lady Tiger Classic in Versailles, then losing by six to New Bremen and by three to St. Marys.
"We were like, 'Okay, now we need to get our stuff together, '" Unrast said. "That's kind of where we all gathered, and the next game we played Coldwater, and that's where we showed who we really were.
"It wasn't really much of the opponents," she went on. "I feel like it was just us. We were in our heads. All three teams were great, but we weren't playing as a team and we had a lot of barriers around one another. We weren't really playing well together as a team."
Marion finished 4-2, with a 53-30 loss to Fort Loramie to end the season. The Flyers rolled through the sectional, winning 58-20 over Hardin Northern and 55-8 over Upper Scioto Valley, and held off St. Henry 53-48 in the district semifinals to reach a district final matchup with Minster for the second straight year.
Unrast scored 17 points, but her biggest contribution might have been as a decoy at the end of regulation, allowing Nora Eckstein to get open for a game-tying 3-pointer to force overtime.
From there, Marion went on to win 52-50 to return to the Vandalia regional.
"I feel like a lot of us were underestimating ourselves," Unrast said. "But I think this year, rather than last year, we had a lot of confidence and were really tight with one another, which I think helped us a lot …
"District finals was my hope," she added, "and we obviously got farther than that, so that was really exciting."
Although she was held to seven points against Mississinawa Valley in the regional semifinals, Unrast pulled down seven rebounds in the first quarter to help the Flyers take an early 10-point lead, and they held on in the second half to earn a rematch against Fort Loramie.
Once again, the Redskins' defense was too much to overcome, sending Marion to a 44-22 loss.
"They were a tough team to score on, that's for sure," Unrast said. "It wasn't really a box-and-one, but they all knew where I was at. I had multiple people come up to me who said their goal was only to make sure where I was at. They did a really good not losing me and staying close."
After the season, Unrast was named the MAC Player of the Year and an All-District first-teamer.
She still has one more season at Marion, with Ronnebaum and all but three players expected back for the Flyers.
"I think it gives me and a lot of the girls that are coming back a lot of confidence," she said of this year's run. "It's crazy, because a lot of us didn't think we would be a very good team this year, losing five seniors, losing Chloe. I think it just shows how confidence can come a long way. I think a lot of people are going to feed off that for next year."
