Story by: Doug Roorbach/The Sports Herald–
All right, so it was not an artistic triumph for the Lady Giants on Saturday night. It was their third game in five nights to start the season, and second night in a row–maybe they were a little tired. Maybe a little rusty. Not quite in sync yet; not used to working together. Pick your reason, but a win is a win and Marion coasted away from the Oak Hill Golden Eagles, 48-33.
It was a tighter game in the first half. The Giants ran out to a 6-0 lead, but Oak Hill came back after a time out and scored five straight.
Just when they looked poised to take the lead, however, the Eagles missed a layup, and gave up a breakaway on the other end. It was 8-5 and the game never got any closer.
Missed layups hurt Oak Hill all night as they repeatedly had uncontested looks from the paint but were unable to cash them in. One observer had the count for blown layups in double figures.
“We just didn’t concentrate real well tonight,” said Eagles Head Coach Todd Law, “We’d miss a wide open layup on a fast break, or get an offensive rebound without really much contact and nobody there and we weren’t putting it in.”
Law said his team had 20 turnovers, most of the “unforced” variety. “That’s definitely too many” he said, “We made some mental mistakes; there’s no doubt about that. Tried to put the ball places it shouldn’t be going.”
Marion added to the Eagles’ woes with a box-and-one defense concentrating on Oak Hill’s Toni Lautzenheiser, who had scored at will against Marion last year.
“Lautzenheiser can really score,” said, Jerry Freshwater, head coach of Marion, “So we wanted to make sure we kept an eye on her.” He hesitated, then added: “It helped that she got in foul trouble, too.”
Indeed, Lautzenheiser got her second personal foul with 6:10 left in the first half and left the game without scoring. She would wind up with only four points for the game.
“They boxed-and-oned her the whole night and she wasn’t very assertive out of it,” said Law. He noted that it was early in the season and his team hadn’t had time to work on how to combat such a defense yet. “As we get more time, we’ll get to work on those kind of things,” he said. “She’ll be the first to tell you she didn’t play real well tonight, but we need to have others step up.”
Abby Scott did that for the Eagles, scoring 12 points–the only Oak Hill player in double figures.
The Giants were not exactly filling it up at the other end. In the final minute of the first quarter, Autumn Weaver cracked heads with an Oak Hill player and left the game with a bump over her eye. At the end of the second quarter she was back, though, and on Marion’s final two possessions she buried two three-pointers to stretch a 17-13 lead to 23-13 at the half. Weaver would hit another three in the second half and finish with 11.
In the third quarter, Marion’s Vironnica Drake took charge, penetrating and finishing several times–something she had been unable to do in the first half. She added a three-pointer and finished with 12.
“We had a game last night, so our legs were a little dead,” said Freshwater, “Once we got warmed up, we kind of got after it a little bit.”
The fourth quarter belonged to Julia Cardwell, who took over inside. She had nine of game-high 15 points in the final stanza and was strong on the boards and in the paint. “Outstanding all-around player,” said Freshwater, “She hit some big free throws for us.”
“Great game tonight,” he said, “The girls really got after it.”
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