Already with a short bench and playing on Monday with one of their starters, Bayleigh Finn, injured and unavailable, the rest of the Marionville Lady Comets knew they would have to step it up against the always-tough Stockton Lady Tigers.
The girls from White Squirrel Land more than held their own with the visitors from Cedar County, but Stockton’s depth won out in the end as the Lady Tigers claimed the Mid-Lakes Conference matchup 61-53.
The Comets held a 32-28 halftime lead on the strength of a 22-13 second quarter that featured five made 3-pointers. They also took advantage of some key mental errors by Stockton, as the Lady Tigers committed ten turnovers in the first half and saw two starters fall victim to foul trouble (Harlly Gray with 3, Sarah Spurgeon with 2). Abbie Hopkins scored 15 of her game-high 23 points in the first half for Marionville.
Stockton turned the momentum around at the start of the third quarter, as coach Kevin Burns made some adjustments in his press defense that resulted in a 10-0 Lady Tiger run, causing Comet coach Jamie LaSalle to burn through his last three timeouts in a 49-second stretch. More outside shooting—this time by Gracie Fiddyment and Tamara McMillen—kept Marionville in the game, however, as the two teams headed to the fourth quarter tied at 48.
“We haven’t had too much problem against pressure all year,” LaSalle noted. “It was kind of surprising except we did have one of our best guards [Finn] out. She’s the fastest girl on our team and normally she’s one of the three that helps bring the ball up. So we should have been ready for it, we practice against that but obviously we weren’t ready for the pressure.”
“We talked about playing good fundamental defense because we had been fouling them and getting points from the foul line,” said Burns. “Plus we went zone to try and not foul them and they hit threes. So we talked about playing good halfcourt man-to-man defense and then we expanded into the fullcourt and forced some turnovers there.”
The final period turned into a highlight reel for Stockton senior Taylor Greenlee, who got open three times for foul-line jumpers to finish with 20 points. Her teammates picked up several steals on overplays, as Marionville was held to just 2 field goals in the final 8 minutes.
Spurgeon added 19 points to Stockton’s total while Gray had 10. Whitney Ford notched 10 points for Marionville to back the 23 of Hopkins.
“Marionville played really well, I thought,” said Burns. “They hit nine 3’s. We could have contested them better but I didn’t expect them to shoot quite like that…. I’m proud of our girls for their second-half effort to come back and get the win because it wasn’t an easy thing to do.”
Stockton improved to 13-6 and 1-2 in the Mid-Lakes and will host district rival Butler on Thursday. Marionville fell to 12-8, 0-2 and next faces Morrisville.
Stockton 15 13 20 13—61
Marionville 10 22 16 5—53
Stockton: Taylor Greenlee 20, Sarah Spurgeon 19, Harlly Gray 10, Mati Burns 7, Taylor Ewing 3, Rachel Merrick 2.
Marionville: Abbie Hopkins 23, Whitney Ford 10, Kymbra Kirby 9, Gracie Fiddyment 6, Tamara McMillen 3, Julie Neveln 2.
