Sports
Marauders, Lady Mauraders Earning Wins Into Winter Break
By: Clark Wooley
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Survive and advance. This would be the appropriate motto to use for the Meigs Marauders this past week, as they started conference play undefeated. Winning two games by six points combined.
It took longer than they would’ve liked, but the Meigs Marauders opened the week with their first win of the season, 53-49 over the Alexander Spartans.
The struggling Marauder offense finally found its form as Freshman Weston Baer led Meigs with 11 first half points and put the Marauders up 26-19 at the half.
After the break, veterans like Dillon Mahr and Christian Mattox were the main contributors on the offensive end and extended the Marauder lead to nine, 42-33, heading into the games final quarter.
The fourth quarter is where Alexander was able to climb its way back into the ball game, outscoring Meigs 16-11 but fell just short.
Mattox and Mahr combined to score 25 points and help Meigs secure its first win of the season.
Riding the momentum of that win, the Marauders traveled to Bidwell on Friday to face a tough River Valley squad. Meigs would dominate the game early and hold off a late Raider push to prevail 55-52.
Meigs would score a season-high 23 points in the first quarter and hold the Raiders to just 10, looking to be in complete control for the rest of the game.
However, much like the game earlier in the week against Alexander, the Marauders became complacent and River Valley was able to storm back and make it a one possession game with just seconds left.
Senior Luke Musser played arguably his best game of the season as he tallied 19 points on the night. The aforementioned Mattox and Mahr were also pivotal in the win, contributing 18 and 14 points respectively.
Meigs will host NY on Tuesday the 20th before a week long break leading up to action in a holiday tournament.
Some of the most important prep work for the season is accomplished during the summer. Meigs first-year coach Jarrod Kasun didn’t get this luxury, yet has his team in prime position to make some noise in TVC-Ohio play after this week.
The Lady Marauders opened the week welcoming the undefeated Nelsonville-York Lady Buckeyes. The Buckeyes came into the contest holding opponents to just 35.2 points per game in the process. Meigs would put up a valiant fight but ultimately fell to the Lady Buckeyes 40-31.
It was a rough offensive start for Meigs as they struggled to put the ball in the basket and missed their first 22 shots of the game. However, NY suffered the same issue and the Lady Marauders went into the locker room at halftime only trailing by two, 14-12.
In the second half Meigs would tie the game up at 16 and regain some of the momentum, but a combination of turnovers and foul trouble allowed NY to eventually pull away. The Lady Buckeyes would outscore Meigs 10 to 0 on the free throw line alone in the fourth quarter.
Kassidy Betzing scored 14 points for Meigs, but no other Lady Marauder was able to contribute more than four.
Just three days later the Lady Marauders would travel to face Wellston and after outscoring the Golden Rockets 15-1 in the second quarter, Meigs would cruise to a 55-30 victory.
The struggling Meigs offense finished the opening quarter down 11-9, but the Marauder defense, which has carried this team all season long, held the Golden Rockets to just 18 points in the second half. Suffocating Wellston to just a 23-percent shooting percentage on the night.
It was a coaches dream on the stat sheet as 10 Lady Marauders scored at least two points in the winning effort. Madison Hendricks was the only Lady Marauder to score in double digits as she poured in a team-high 10 points. Devin Humphreys, Madison Fields and Alli Hatfield scored eight points a piece.
Coach Jarrod Kasun was impressed with his team’s effort over the past week, but has only a coach can, sees ways in which his team needs to improve going forward, “We have to shoot the ball better. We need more movement on offense, we’ve been too stagnant.” Kasun said, “Teams like NY got us out of our comfort zone, we need to be more comfortable with with teams up in our face. Our defense has been great, though.”
The win put the Lady Marauders at an impressive 3-1 overall record and pulled them to .500 in conference play. Meigs will have to winnable games coming up as they travel to Athens (1-6) on Monday before hosting River Valley (2-5) next Thursday.