Marion’s Braylen Mescher connects for his only three-pointer of the game while leading the Flyers with 18 points in Friday’s win over Coldwater. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Marion Local used its defense, balanced scoring, and Braylen Mescher’s best night of the season to move past Coldwater for the Flyers’ 18th win.
Maria Stein, OH – After watching Marion Local control the pace of the game and subdue his own offense Friday, Coldwater coach Nick Fisher simply praised the Flyers’ defense.
“Give their defense credit,” said Fisher. “They caused some uncharacteristic turnovers at bad times. You know they’re going to come and Kurt does a good job gettin’ em ready to play.”
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Down the hall and outside the Marion locker room, Flyers coach Kurt Goettemoeller appreciated the compliment, but thought his team could have played a little better.
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“If I’m being honest, we hang our hat on our defense – maybe we’re too much a perfectionist – but I think we can play better [defensively] than we did tonight,” he said. “We played well in spots, but we made a lot of mistakes that we shouldn’t be making. We know that we could see these guys a second time (tournament) and I think we need to defend them better.”
Reiterating, he added, “We made a lot of mistakes.”
In a typical 55-48 MAC basketball game it was hard to tell at times between basketball and football. The officials pretty much let them play – just the way they like it at Marion Local – and Marion eventually pulled away in the second half to a ten-point lead with a minute left in the third quarter. Not to oversimplify, but that was the abridged version of Marion Local’s 18th win of the season.
And not to detract from the play of junior guard Brayden Mescher, who had his best game offensive game of the year, leading the Flyers with 18 points and a solid all-around floor game – more assists than turnovers (7 as a team), while setting up teammates Austin Niekamp (15 pts) and Grant Kremer (11 pts).
Coldwater can play defense, too. Marion’s Ryan Homan gets the squeeze from Baylen Blockberger (#5) and Mason Welsch.
That said, Fisher’s 12-5 Cavaliers gave as good as they got, jumping out to a 12-10 lead after the first quarter, leaning on the athleticism and scoring of senior guard Baylen Blockberger. Blockberger would score 6 of their 12 first quarter points, and lead all scorers for the game with 20 points.
But Marion’s physicality and obsession with restricting movement of the basketball began to take a toll in the second quarter. The Flyers held Blockberger scoreless, putting additional pressure on other Coldwater scoring options, and those options, Brady Lefeld, Owen Kunk, and Mason Welsch would only contribute 9 points.
In the meantime Marion and Mescher were beginning to flex their muscle on their end of the court. Mescher hit his only three-pointer of the game, he and Niekamp combined for 12 points, the Flyers scored 14, and took a 24-21 lead to the locker room.
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But the game took a sharp turn during the first two minutes of the third quarter. Marion went on a 6-0 spurt, jumped their lead to 9 points, and effectively put Coldwater in catch-up mode for the remaining fourteen minutes of the game.
Coldwater’s Baylen Blockberger drives for a pair of his game-high 20 points.
“Those first two minutes were really important,” said Nick Fisher. “And we’ve had that conversation a lot this year, because the first two minutes of the second half are important. We just couldn’t get stops in that section and again, their defense took us out of things that we wanted to do.”
Marion took full advantage. Ryan Homan hit a three…Niekamp hit a three and scored 5…Mescher scored 5…Kale Ahrens scored 2…Grant Kremer added 2, and at the 1:08 mark the Flyers had gone up 41-31, their biggest lead of the game. Blockberger would score 6 for Coldwater to counter, but Marion’s defense took the rest of his help away.
Baylen Blockberger is one of the state’s best three-sport athletes. An All-Ohio quarterback, he drove the Cavaliers to the Division VI state title in December. and a gifted baseball player in the spring. And he continued to score in the final quarter, throwing in a pair of three-pointers on his way to 8 for the quarter and a game-high 20 points to lead all scorers.
“Nobody works harder than Baylen,” said Nick Fisher, afterwards, paying tribute to one of Coldwater’s overall best. “He’s in the gym, even during football, putting up shots every day. It’s tough to be a three-sport athlete like he is, but his skill set is so high because he puts in the time.”
Coldwater would have their best offensive quarter in the fourth with 17 points, but Marion would counter with 14 to close out the seven-point win, 55-48.
Marion Local finished with 46% from the floor, but just 7 of 19 from the foul line (37%).
Coldwater finished with shooting 42% from the floor, and likewise struggled at the foul line, hitting 5 of 10 (50%).
The boys tournament draw is this weekend and Kurt Goettemoeller was very cautious in talking about Coldwater, a team that his Flyers team could meet again soon in the Division VI district tournament.
“Coldwater’s a good basketball team,” he said. “They can score the ball and they can defend because they have good athletes. We could very well see them again.
“But Brayden Mescher really stepped up tonight and had a huge game for us. If you want to take something away from our offense we have enough guys who can hurt you in other spots. I thought Brayden was the guy who needed to be big for us tonight, and he was.
This used to be a foul…Marion’s Grant Kremer separates the ball handler from the ball.
“I’m really proud of how hard our kids played, let’s not mince words there,” he added. “But that said, we have to go back and look at the film…and we gotta’ get better. We’re not going to win anything when it matters most unless we get better defensively. And we have to shoot it with more confidence, because we sure didn’t shoot it well at the [foul] line tonight. So we have to get better if we’re going to do anything in the tournament.”
A state champion in 2018, Goettemoeller is entitled to his perfectionist views, even while being 18-1. That northwest region tournament bracket, by the way, will include Marion, Coldwater and Spencerville, and like the volleyball bracket back in the fall, could turn cannibalistic.
And except for those two minutes starting out the third quarter…and the six unanswered points by Marion…momentum can turn on a dime in basketball when you have a Baylen Blockberger. Marion ended up Friday winning by seven.
Trust it. Kurt Goettemoeller knows.
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