Marshall County has been waiting for another shot at a regional championship since their last appearance in the title game in 2014 when they lost in overtime to McCracken County and it’s been eight years since their last First Region championship.
They will get that chance on Sunday when they take on McCracken County after the Mustangs beat Mayfield 73-49 in Saturday’s second semi-final game. Tip-off Sunday at the CFSB Center is 3:00 pm.
To get there, the Marshals had to go through Paducah Tilghman, a team they beat in both regular season games and after three tough quarters, things began to fall into place and the Marshals pulled away in the fourth quarter to win 67-58.
“We struggled shooting the ball…we were 0-for-7 coming into halftime at the 3-point line and that’s not typical for us”, Marshals Head Coach Terry Birdsong said. “When you play in a tournament with multiple games you have games like that. You have a game where it’s just not going your way. I’m proud of our guys. I thought our schedule paid off for us today. We’ve had these guys in so many tough situations. They hung in there, they kept their composure.
Along with their struggles from behind the arc, the Marshals were just 50 percent from the foul line and were out-rebounded by Tilghman 14-7 in the first half. Zion Harmon scored all 10 of his first half points in the first quarter while Tyler Stokes picked up the slack in the second quarter, scoring 12 of his 14 first half points.
The Marshals lead was 16-11 going into the second quarter but a 7-0 run by Tilghman on baskets by Camdon Marshall, Michael Laster and a three from Eli Brown gave the Blue Tornados their first lead of the game and they took a 29-28 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Tilghman led by as many as five points in the third quarter at 34-29 but the Marshals 10-5 run tied it up at 39-39 on six points from Stokes and two each from Tyler Powell and Harmon. Harmon dropped in the go-ahead basket in the final minute for a 41-40 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Harmon scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to put the Marshals in front 48-42 and the lead was six at 52-46 on a Harmon assist to Brady Miller under the goal. Harmon found Powell wide open near the two minute mark to stretch the lead to 60-48. Their 72 percent for the game from the line paid off in the closing minute to close out the 67-58 win.
While battling foul trouble, Birdsong said, “I thought (Kaden) Driver and (Brady) Miller, those two guys especially and Quinn Smith came in and gave us some valuable minutes. Those two guys…we get pretty good offensively when they’re in the game.”
After sitting out a while with early foul trouble, Powell said he got in the flow of the game “when we were getting open and Zion was hitting me on those cuts, that’s what got me going.”
Powell said of Sunday’s championship game, “I think we just keep playing together. If we show up and play together and play hard defensively as we can I like our chances.”
Birdsong agrees…”You can’t win if you’re not there. We believe in our kids, our fans were great, it’s an honor to coach at this school.”
Marshall County 16 28 41 67
Paducah Tilghman 11 29 40 58
Scoring
Marshall County: Zion Harmon 26, Tyler Stokes 22, Tyler Powell 10, Brady Miller 5, Bryce Flatt 4
Paducah Tilghman: Michael Laster 17, Troy Williams 16, Eli Brown 10, Camdon Marshall 6,Mian Shaw 5, Jackson Goodwin 4
Marshall County: FG 24/42, 3 Pt 1/11, FT 18/25, Reb 14, Ast 8, Stl 10, TO 7, PF 14
Paducah Tilghman: FG 17/38, 3 Pt 4/13, FT 20/24, Reb 26, Ast 3, TO 21, PF 21
