By GARY R. RASBERRY
grasberry@dailystandard.com
SIDNEY — After having a defensive effort that did not
please their coach on Friday, the Marion Local Flyers made amends
on Monday.
The Flyers used a 10-0 run to end the second quarter and outscored
Lehman 32-9 in the middle two periods to come away with a 56-37
win over the Cavaliers at the Lehman Gymnasium. The win puts
Marion Local at 4-2 on the season as Lehman continues to struggle
in dropping to 1-8.
The Flyers, who won a 53-41 decision over Parkway on Friday,
turned things up in forcing 17 turnovers and turning the Cavalier
miscues into points. The Flyers’ 2-3 matchup zone also
caused problems for Lehman when the Cavaliers attempted passes
over the middle of the zone.
“We were much happier with our defensive matches tonight
and with our ball pressure than we were our last ball game,”
said Flyers coach Keith Westrick. “These are some guys
who haven’t played together a great deal. Now they’re
learning to read one another. In our matchup, it really does
depend on where your teammates are going to be. If we can get
consistent, we’re going to play pretty good basketball.”
The defense kicked it up a notch after the 11-11 tie following
the first quarter when Lehman played square with Marion.
Lehman managed to keep it tied up to 14-14 before the Flyers
took over, scoring the last 10 points in the quarter to go up
24-14 at the half. Cory Luebke, who started off a little slow,
picked up the pace with eight straight points to end the quarter.
The fun continued to start the third quarter as Russell Moeller
hit a long-distance jumper to make it a 13-0 run before the
Cavaliers’ Kevin Sargeant broke the over four-minute dry
spell with a layup. The Flyers outscored the Cavaliers 19-6
in the third quarter to put things away.
Along with the defense, the offense had a potent night, shooting
50 percent (19-of-38) from the field and 67 percent (8-of-12)
from the free-throw line.
Having a strong night scoring for the Flyers was Moeller who
had a game-high 22 points on the strength of hitting five of
his six attempts from beyond the three-point line. Moeller hit
his first four shots, three of them being to threes, to start
the second half and help the Flyers pull away.
“I thought the team passed the ball very well,”
said Westrick. “We got the ball inside a couple of times
and kicked it out and also got some skip passes. With Luebke
on one side and Moeller on the other being able to use skip
passes to one another at the three-point line, that’s
a nice situation to be in.”
Luebke added 18 points, shooting 6-of-11 from the field in the
game.
Westrick was also pleased with the play of the bench. Wes Everman
came up with seven points but did his best work on defense against
6-9 Lehman center Brandon Brandewie. Brandewie had just three
points in the first half and scored just 12 on the night as
Everman took the chores of keeping in front of him and denying
him the ball.
“Wes came in and played very good center defense on (Brandewie),”
said Westrick. “We’re going to see a lot of big
people like him the rest of the season and we just need to get
around in front more often. He hurt us when we were stuck behind
him. We rebounded the backside very well.”
With the Flyers now beginning a stretch of six straight double
weekends, the play of the bench on Monday pleased Westrick,
knowing that he’ll need a strong bench for those two-game
weekends.
“The other night, the bench players came in and didn’t
seem to pick us up,” said Westrick. “Tonight, Ryan
Stucke and Kyle Moeder especially along with Wes all came in
ready to play. I was pleased. When you bring three players off
the bench and not hurt yourself offensively or defensively,
you have to be pleased.”
Marion returns to the Hangar on Friday night for a Midwest Athletic
Conference battle with Fort Recovery.
The junior varsity game was won by Marion, 40-37.
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