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Marion Local center Jack Knapke blocks a shot by Celina's Logan Billerman at the Hangar on Saturday.
MARIA STEIN - Marion Local looked plenty sharp in its belated season opener.
The Flyers' frontcourt stars combined for 29 points, the defense hassled Celina all night, and they kept pulling away for a 49-32 win in a boys basketball game at the Hangar on Saturday.
"I'm excited, because you can see that we still have a ton of room where we can make improvements," Marion Local coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "I thought we got contributions from 10 kids, we went 10 deep on our bench. We're a little bit deeper than last year, which is great."
Coming off a strong season-opening win over Van Wert on Friday, Celina (1-1) fell behind by 10 in the second quarter and never got closer in the second half.
But coach Adam Johns said that although they weren't able to keep up with Marion's offense, the Bulldogs largely turned in the game he was hoping for.
"If you had told me going into the game that we'd shoot 50% from two and only have 11 turnovers, I'd have thought we'd be in position to be pretty successful tonight," he said. "The scoreboard doesn't say that, but those two stats - if you have told me that, I probably would've been okay."
Senior Jack Knapke started Marion (1-0) off 53 seconds in, and Victor Hoelscher made it 5-0 by swishing a three from the left wing. Braylon Gabes and Grant Duncan got buckets, but the Flyers were up 11-4 before Kaiden Werntz knocked down a three with 4:53 left in the first.
Celina's Kaiden Werntz fights for a shot in the paint against two Marion Local defenders on Saturday.
The teams combined for just six shots the rest of the quarter, with Jack Knapke hitting two free throws and Hoelscher knocking down a fadeaway jump shot at the buzzer to stretch the lead to eight.
After Marion went without a turnover in the first quarter, Celina forced seven over the next two. The Bulldogs were able to get in passing lanes, but couldn't collect enough deflected balls to undermine the Flyers' attack.
"When we do that, when we start to get tips and deflections, that leads to easy baskets like we had last night," Johns said. "We just didn't get our hands on enough of those passes tonight to get us going, get a quick six, eight points, or just to make them uncomfortable and make a poor decision."
Forward Austin Niekamp scored on a layup off an inbounds pass with 5:37 left, then hit a three on an assist from Daniel Everman 45 seconds later to extend the lead to 10 for the first time.
Niekamp hit another catch-and-shoot three with 3:22 to go, and later drained a third 18 seconds into the fourth on another pass from Everman. He finished 6-of-15 from the field for 15 points, shooting 3-of-8 from three, and added five rebounds and a steal.
"Austin's made tons of improvement in his game," Goettemoeller said. "He's going to be a really versatile player. He's a college basketball player, and he's only a junior. He still has a ton of room to grow."
Jack Knapke got a steal and slammed home a dunk to make it 36-22, then powered through Carter Altstaetter for a layup to stretch the lead to 16 with 3 1/2 minutes left in the third.
But Duncan hit a long shot to answer, and the Bulldogs kept pace the rest of the quarter to keep the deficit to 15 heading into the fourth.
Celina's Caleb Gabes drives inside past Marion Local's Ryan Homan on Saturday.
In the fourth quarter, they couldn't find enough points to threaten a comeback. Duncan made an impressive putback of his own miss, flicking the ball up and through the hoop, and Braylon Gabes hit another jumper, but that was all they could muster.
"It's our first double weekend for these guys, and it's only about eight or nine basketball practices for some of these football players," Johns said. "We're still getting our legs, and on a Saturday night, you need to make a couple positive-energy plays just to give you that boost, get you going in the first half. Then you've got to have a couple plays in the second half to give you another spark. It's pretty draining, out there playing as hard as we do."
Jack Knapke scored 14 points. Duncan and Werntz paced Celina with nine apiece, with Duncan adding six rebounds.
The Flyers have six days off before taking on another Western Buckeye League team, traveling to St. Marys on Friday. Celina is on the road to face two more Midwest Athletic Conference teams, facing Parkway on Tuesday in a girls/boys varsity doubleheader starting with the girls at 6 p.m. and then heading to Versailles on Friday in its final game before Christmas.
