Mississinawa’s Brenna Price gets up close and personal with Marion’s Avae Unrast (Press Pros Feature Photos by Julie McMaken Wright).
A crucial shot from a freshman with no fear and some timely steals at crunch time delivered Marion Local from a shaky stretch in the Division IV regional semifinals Thursday at the Vandalia Butler Student Events Center.
Vandalia, OH – When her heartbeat subsided and the veins that nearly popped over the frantic final minutes of an advance to the Division IV regional title game relaxed ever so slightly, Marion Local coach Beth Streib saw much more good than bad in the Flyers’ 40-37 survival of Mississinawa Valley on Thursday night.
“We obviously didn’t shoot real well, so we had to key in on defense,” said Streib, whose team will now face top-ranked Fort Loramie for a spot in the state Final Four on Saturday. “We did a pretty good job defensively. I know they average around 60 points per-game. We made some big defensive plays toward the end…but our decision-making has to be better.”
Mississinawa’s Taylee Woodbory was atop Marion’s scouting report, as you’d expect of the Southwest District Player-of-the-Year.
OK, so one dark cloud intruded there at the finish, which made Streib’s assessment a veritable walking-on-sunshine retelling of the tornado her team put her and the always-robust Flyer following through down the stretch.
Toiling mightily to deal with Mississinawa’s array of cumbersome zone defensive coverages, Marion finally opened its largest lead of the second half, 35-29, via Avae Unrast’s layup drive with 4:53 to play.
Given some pretty stingy defense of its own throughout, that Flyers’ margin appeared pretty comfortable until it suddenly began unraveling like a wool sweater’s loose thread caught in the door of a Corvette going in the opposite direction.
Marion, which had weathered 18 turnovers to that point, promptly threw away five straight possessions, allowing Mississinawa to get back within 35-33 on consecutive hoops from MacKenzea Townsend over the next three minutes.
The Blackhawks (21-6) weren’t exactly perfect over the stretch either, turning it over three times, including on an attempted give-and-go to Townsend after pulling within a field goal of a tie.
Marion came down and – having hit 10-of-12 free throws to that point – was perfectly content to choke the clock and wait on a fifth Mississinawa foul of the quarter.
But instead of the two-shot opportunity that would bring, the ball went to freshman Mya Eckstein on the left wing. Eckstein, who scored six points already, turned down her first look at a 15-footer.
But when the ball came back to her, she dribbled a bit closer and launched, as Streib watched…um, closely from about 15 feet away.
“It’s one of those shots that if it goes in, it’s great; and if it doesn’t, it’s a bad one,” Streib said. “She’s a freshman. I’m glad she was confident enough to take that shot. She’s a good player.”
Allison Dirksen, who carried Marion offensively with a team-high 17 points, had a more optimistic perspective.
“When it went up, I was confident in her,” Dirksen said. “I just tried to keep my girl pinned so she could get it off.”
Indeed, Dirksen’s screen of the 6-1 Townsend provided some space for Eckstein to launch the jumper that rebuild Marion’s lead to 37-33.
The Flyers (20-7) couldn’t breathe easily too long because Mississinawa’s Southwest District Player-of-the-Year, Taylee Woodbory, bounded into the frontcourt and scored to get her team back within a bucket.
It was physical throughout, with Marion’s Allison Dirksen getting a close look at this collision involving teammate Kate Ashman (12).
That was one of the few times Woodbory, a speedy junior, found freedom against Marion’s defense all night in an eight-point performance, or about half her average.
“Everybody had to know where she was,” Streib said. “We knew they were going to set a lot of ball screens for her. We wanted to switch, and we wanted to hedge high with our post people to try to make her give the ball up.”
Unrast hit two free throws at 18.1 to rebuild Marion’s margin to four, providing the clutch contribution expected of the Midwest Athletic Conference’s regular-season MVP.
Woodbory, though, was equal to the task with two more free throws with 9.4 seconds left to again cut the deficit in half.
With a timeout still available, Mississinawa coach Michael Paige trusted his team to cover closely on the ensuing inbounds and foul immediately.
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But instead, the Blackhawks allowed Marion to kill six seconds in the backcourt before putting Dirksen on the line with only 3.5 seconds left.
“We had just talked about it when we were shooting free throws,” Paige said. “We said, ‘Hey, if they get a rebound, we need a quick foul. When she made both and they threw it in, we were supposed to foul right away. But we ended up chasing a little bit and didn’t foul them as soon as we needed to.”
Marion Local’s Avae Unrast gets free for two of her seven points.
That made the timeout Paige saved to set something up at the finish essentially moot, even though Dirksen made just the first of her two free throws, thus providing the final margin and ending Mississinawa’s run to its first girls basketball regional.
“Marion played a great game,” Paige said. “I think the moment just got too big for us. We weren’t running like we normally run. We weren’t playing like we normally play.
“We normally take 22 threes a game. Today, we didn’t get anywhere near that. We called a couple plays for some of our girls and they ended up making an extra pass to the middle instead of taking a shot they would normally shoot.”
The Flyers’ coverage had something to do with that, too, and it will have to be stout Saturday for the 1 p.m. regional final against Loramie, which pounded Marion, 53-30, on Feb. 13.
Much of that margin, though, traced to a rough start that invited Fort Loramie’s getaway to an early 18-point lead.
“We’ll have to take care of the ball,” Streib said. “That was a struggle tonight. We’ll have to match their physical aggressiveness and their transition. That’s what hurt us when we played them this season was transition points and points off turnovers. If we can limit those and keep it more of a half-court offensive and defensive game, we’ll be right in there.”
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