Marion’s Avae Unrast gets bumped off course by Parkway’s Adria Miller, but still scored 11 of the Flyers’ 35 points in Thursday’s win over the Panthers. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
A determined defensive effort in the second half by Marion Local salvaged a poor first half, offensively. The Flyers managed to keep their win streak alive with a 35-23 win over Parkway.
Maria Stein, OH – Entering play this week there were three high schools in the state boasting unbeaten records by both their boys and girls basketball teams.
Vandalia Butler was one of them.
Columbiana was another.
And Marion Local was the third.
And following the Flyers’ 35-23 win over Parkway Thursday night coach Beth Streib was asked, given the distinction of her record, what kind of grade would she give her team and its 11-0 start?
“I don’t know,” she said, considering the first half issues the Flyers had with scoring points, and their late defensive effort that ultimately turned the tide of the game.
“Maybe a ‘B’ or a ‘C’. Would I have expected this (to be unbeaten)? Obviously we had a lot of unknowns coming into the season. We have three seniors, no juniors, and a lot of underclassmen.”
Not the perfect formula for unbeaten success by anyone’s standard, nonetheless Streib’s team has withstood the first half of its schedule and a couple of close calls. And for the first sixteen minutes of Thursday’s match with the Panthers they looked like anything but an unbeaten team.
Parkway’s Megan Hughes scored 9 of the Panthers’ 23 points…all in the first half.
Parkway (8-4, 3-2 in MAC) jammed up the lane, denied Marion easy access to the rim, and used an aggressive man-to-man defense to push Marion’s guards out beyond the three-point line – too far to shoot or feed the ball to the post.
In the meantime the Panthers’ Megan Hughes scored just enough of her team-high 9 points to provide an early lead, and cushion, and went to the halftime locker room with a 16-13 lead.
“Give credit to Parkway’s defense, especially in the first half,” said Streib, afterwards. “We were stagnant, they were really packing in on us, and getting to the bucket was a struggle for us. I thought we had much better movement in the second half, and we were able to push the tempo – not allow them to relax on defense while we were standing out there.”
It didn’t seem like much, but when you’ve only scored 13 points in sixteen minutes sometimes it doesn’t take much more to flip the script.
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Marion came out in the third quarter with a noticeable burst of defensive energy, played with a little more physical presence, and began chipping away at the Panthers’ lead at the foul line. At the 3:00 mark they tied the score at 19-19 on a pair of free throws, and a moment later senior Avae Unrast gave Marion its first lead, 22-19, on a three-point shot from the top of the key…one of just two 3-pointers for the game.
Marion’s defensive presence held Parkway to just seven points in the second half.
Leading 24-19 to start the fourth quarter Marion’s defensive DNA finally emerged, their pressure forcing a pair of Parkway turnovers. Marion converted those turnovers into points (just 4 for the game off turnovers), and put the game away at the foul line…Unrast and Chloe Ronnebaum canning 6 of 8 attempts in the final three minutes to secure the 35-23 win.
Ronnebaum (12) and Unrast (11) would account for 23 of Marion’s 35 points, and hitting 14 of 20 shots from the foul line turned out to be the winning difference in the game…that and having held the Panthers to seven second half points!
Parkway was led by Megan Hughes and her nine points, but all of her nine points came in the first half and she barely threatened the rim over the final sixteen minutes. Adria Miller and Bryn Schoenleben each scored 5 points to contribute to the Panthers’ total of 23.
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“We tried to switch and put someone quicker on the Hughes in the second half,” Streib said, explaining how the Flyers were able to hold Parkway to just 7 points, post-halftime.
“And they got to the paint on dribble penetration in the first half and we were able to take that away. Those were the major changes we made.
“We weren’t able to press in the first half because we didn’t score, and we missed some layups that we should have converted. But our effort was better in the second half, we rebounded better, and our seniors, Chloe and Avae hit some big shots and make some big plays when we needed them.”
Not the tidiest of wins, but you need a few of those over the course of a season and Streib smiled, admitting that this was a good one to have behind them.
“Absolutely,” she laughed, surprised to hear the fun fact of being one of only three Ohio schools who have yet to lose a basketball game.
At least for another night…they won’t be the first.
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