Marion Local’s Grant Kremer (in blue) led all scorers with 18 points Friday night at New Bremen. (Press Pros Feature Photos By Logan Howard)
Marion Local wasted no time showing New Bremen what the Flyers learned during a week off after a lopsided loss to Delphos St. John’s.
By Marcus Hartman for Press Pros
New Bremen, OH — Long basketball seasons tend to have inflection points.
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Teams start practicing in late fall and begin to figure out who they are. Games begin and they learn more from facing other teams.
Then comes that inevitable (for most) first loss of a campaign, perhaps as good a learning experience as any a team will have all year.
That appears to have been the case for Marion Local.
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One week after being trounced by Delphos St. John’s 66-36, the Flyers (11-1, 4-1 in the MAC) bounced back big time with a dominant 58-23 win at New Bremen.
Marion Local coach Kurt Goettemoeller said his team might have liked to get right back on the court after that showing against the Blue Jays, but they ended up having to wait seven days to see another team when a Monday matchup at the MLK Classic in Fort Loramie fell through.
That meant a couple of days off for his players then a full week of practice, two developments that appeared to be beneficial.
Rest is always nice, but practice time is also precious this time of year. That’s especially true at Marion Local, where they are frequently trying to cram in extra games after the football team plays into December.
Offensive rebound by the Flyers in the 2nd half.
“I crave full weeks of practice, and this year we don’t really have any more Tuesday games,” Goettemoeller said. “I have a disdain for Tuesday games because then you can’t really practice hard Monday and Thursday. It’s tough. So to get four full days of practice is super valuable.”
It showed from the start against the Cardinals — at least after the first possession.
The Flyers won the opening tip Friday night and turned it over quickly, but not much else went wrong in the first half for the visitors.
They jumped out to a 7-0 lead before Gavin Dicke got the Cardinals on the board by following his own miss with a successful bank shot.
Marion Local senior Grant Kremer answered that with his second 3-pointer of the night, and a put-back by Kale Ahrens made it 12-2.
Gavin Quellhorst scored a layup in the closing seconds to save some face for New Bremen, but the scoreboard still read 12-4 after eight minutes.
That turned out to be just a warmup for the Flyers, who raced out of the gate in the second with the first nine points.
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Brayden Mescher started it with a steal and a breakaway two-handed dunk that got the sizable Marion Local student section fired up, then he picked off a New Bremen pass and fed Kremer for a breakaway layup to make it 16-4.
That prompted a New Bremen timeout, but there wasn’t much that could be done about the onslaught — at least as long as the Cardinals’ shots were not falling.
Luke Everman (right) attempts a jump shot for Marion Local as Aaron Wuebker defends for New Bremen.
“Our mantra is forcing tough twos,” said Goettemoeller, who credited assistant coach Laden Delawder with preparing an effective scouting report on New Bremen’s 2-3 zone. “We want to make teams make tough twos over our length and size and athleticism. We just don’t want them to shoot clean looks at threes, and there were shots in some other games that maybe would fall for them, but once that lid was on that basket a little bit, it got tougher and tougher for them.”
Ahrens kept the run going with a 3-pointer from the corner then Kremer elevated in the lane for a short jumper to make it 21-4 halfway through the second.
A Lukas Lennartz’s bank shot finally got the Cardinals on the board in the second quarter, but that didn’t come until 3:10 was left.
Marion Local scored the last two baskets of the half to take a 25-6 lead into the locker room, and not much changed in the second half.
Kremer put back a miss to start the scoring then Ahrens added a breakaway dunk to make it 29-6.
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After Quellhorst and Dicke scored back to back baskets for the Cardinals, Ahrens scored inside after having his first attempt blocked.
After a Ryan Leichliter steal and layup for New Bremen, Marion Local went on another 8-0 run to make sure there would be no comeback.
Kale Ahrens slam dunks in the 2nd half.
Isaac Moeller started it with a 3 from the top of the key, then Brennen Hess executed an old-fashioned 3-point play and Mescher scored on a put-back to make it 44-15 with under a minute to go in the third quarter.
“We want to win the easy basket war, and when you get those easy baskets out of your defense, that just deflates the other team and it just pumps your team up,” Goettemoeller said. “And we even had a couple dunks in there, which is kind of cool. Our guys got to show off their athleticism a little bit, but getting easy baskets is very important, and not giving them up is also equally important.”
Kremer finished with a game-high 18 points for the Flyers while Ahrens added 15. Hess had seven and Moeller and Mescher had added six.
Dicke finished with six for the Cardinals (9-5, 2-2) while Quellhorst had five.
They were looking at a quick turnaround at Ridgemont thanks to games being rescheduled to try to beat the winter storm on Saturday, and New Bremen coach Cory Stephens was fine with that in this case.
Brennan Hess (3) goes up for a basket for Marion Local in a win at New Bremen on Friday night.
“That is a nice thing,” he said. “You know, we got beat tonight. Got a sour taste for your mouth, but you get a chance for tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a new day, and that’s kind of what we talked to the kids about. This game’s over. Tomorrow’s a new day. We got a lot we can learn from this game going forward.”
He was looking forward to what Goettemoeller got last week — a full week of practice before going to Minster next Friday.
“We can work on it tomorrow, and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in practice next week,” Stephens said. “Work on some of these things, and get ready for Friday to see how we improved.”
Marion Local will also play early Saturday in a nonleague game at Jackson Center.
“We have smart kids, so you can get them ready in a short period of time, and we’re going to have to because Jackson’s good,” Goettemoeller said. “We played some good nonleague teams: Bath, Jonathan Alder is really good out of Columbus, and obviously (in the MAC) we played St. Henry already. We’re going to play them again next Friday, so it doesn’t get any easier, but it makes you better.”
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