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By Nolan Epstein
Springfield, MO – Playing in their first contest without injured senior guard Jarrett Paoni and his 16 PPG, the Marshfield Blue Jays (10-12) got big time contributions from others on the roster to steal a 66-59 road win over Central (4-14) on Friday night.
Three different players scored in double figures for head coach Damon Seiger’s squad – easing the blow of being without their go-to scorer for the entirety of the game.
“I didn’t know quite how we would respond without [Paoni] and I couldn’t be more proud of my kids,” Seiger said after the victory. “I thought they came out and did exactly what we asked.”
While it was a valiant overall team effort, the night belonged to 6-foot-4 sophomore Triston Letterman, who put up an impressive 32 points.
Letterman was ready to roll early as the youngster already reached the 10-point plateau after the first eight minutes. In addition, Letterman capped off his standout evening with an emphatic dunk for the exclamation point in the final ten seconds of regulation.
“He’s got a knack for the rim,” said Seiger of Letterman. “He knows how to put the ball in the hole and he did just that tonight.”
The Blue Jays led for the entirety of the second half despite Central clawing within one possession on several occasions. Every time the Bulldogs were on a run, Marshfield found an answer at the right time.
“When you’ve got a team that just won’t go away because they keep scoring, you’ve got to keep scoring,” Seiger said. “I thought we did a good job of that as far as continuing to attack. We didn’t just sit back on our heels and let them go get us.”
The Bulldogs were down 56-47 with just over three minutes left in the game, but got within three points late thanks in large part to a commendable effort from senior DJ Hardin.
Hardin posted a team-high 21 points in the loss to keep his club within striking distance.
“He’s a vocal kid and the kids look up to him,” Central head coach Armando Johnson of Hardin. “He’s that guy that you know you can give the ball to in certain situations and he’ll go make something happen.”
Unfortunately for Johnson and Central, there just wasn’t enough consistency when it came to playing cohesively as a unit, which is something that has plagued the Bulldogs throughout the campaign.
“We’ve got guys who are very, very talented, but it’s the hardest thing in the world trying to get kids to play together,” Johnson added. “That’s been killing us all season. Anybody who has seen us play will see that we play well in spurts, but we can’t get guys to play together for 32 minutes.”
Marshfield returns home to host Buffalo on Tuesday, while Central travels to Bolivar next Friday.
Box Score
Marshfield – 12 14 21 19 – 66
Central – 10 15 17 17 – 59
Marshfield – Triston Letterman 32, Britt Hill 17, Austin Porter 11, Bo Atkison 6
Central – DJ Hardin 21, Tavi Robinson 13, Bryson Dankert 9, Robert Galvin 9, Garrett Harper 3, Ian Holyfield 3
