From the opening tip, the Marshals put together an impressive four quarters in Friday’s 68-59 Hoopfest win over Clarksville Academy. They held 6’8″ 3-star Morehead State University commit Eddie Ricks to 14 points, seven below his 21 points per game average coming into this season.
“Very pleased with the effort”, said Head Coach Sawyer Donohoo. “I thought we competed tonight. We made them earn their points for the most part.”
Down 3-0 to start the game, Wade Moore answered with a three to tie then dropped in the Marshals second basket to go up 5-3. Clarksville Academy took the lead once more in the quarter at 12-11, but the Marshals answered with a 3-pointer from Trey Wall followed by a Hunter Wallace three. Six players contributed to the 21-17 first quarter lead, led by Moore with seven points.
Five straight points from Orrin Phelps to start the second quarter stretched the Marshals lead to 26-17. A 10-0 run by the Cougars put them up 27-26 but the Marshals finished out the half on a 33-30 lead, battling the Cougars for every ball.
Tied up at 36 a piece in the third quarter, Logan Davis hit a three then came up with a steal and fed it off to Moore for the lay-in and five-point lead at 41-36. The back-and-forth battle continued throughout the quarter. Up by one at 48-47, Staples – who led the Marshals with eight points in the quarter – hit the buzzer beater to give them a 50-47 lead and big lift heading into the final eight minutes.
A three from Ricks tied the game up at 50 to start the fourth quarter. Staples and Wall combined for four points to put the Marshals back up by four and a technical foul on a Cougar player sent Wall to the line where he dropped in both for a six-point lead.
Clarksville Academy cut it back to two points at 56-54 but it was followed by a 9-1 run from the Marshals behind five free throws from Staples that stretched the lead to 10 on their way to closing out the 68-59 win.
Pleased with their effort from start to finish, Coach Donohoo said that’s what they’ve been preaching to the players it will take to win games and with size not in their favor against the Cougars, that extra effort on both ends paid off.
“We don’t have superstars, so whatever our ceiling is, we’re going to get there through hard work”, said Donohoo. “Doing little things…details…so it was nice to see them go out and execute that. We got into some foul trouble and it kind of changed the game a bit but that’s the way it goes. I thought our guys responded to that. We’re deep so guys came in and they were ready to play. We’ve got a good group of guys. It can be anybody’s night so everybody has to be ready to play.”
Staples led the Marshals with 16 points, earning the sophomore MVP honors of the game. Six threes in the game came from six different players and they were 18-of 27 at the free throw line.
In less than 17 hours from the conclusion of Friday’s game, the Marshals will be on Howard Beth Court again at noon on Saturday in their second Hoopfest game against Christian Academy of Louisville who beat New Madrid, Mo. 65-60 following the Marshals win.
Marshall County 21 12 17 18 – 68
Clarksville Academy 17 13 17 12 – 59
Marshall County (2-0): Staples 16, Moore 12, Wallace 10, Wall 7, Phelps 7, Davis 6, Parker 6, Binkley 2, Robertson 2
Clarksville Academy (4-2): Wyatt 19, Ricks 14, Rideau 9, Johnson 6, Merriweather 6, Phillips 3, Moss 2
Game MVP: Alex Staples
Marshall County vs. Clarksville Academy, 12-2-22
