Marion boys fall to Wichita Trinity
By ERIC CLARK
Sports editor
It seemed like an easy task — win the last three games on your schedule and walk away with the last Cottonwood Valley League championship. That's all the Marion High School boys basketball team had to do. It sounds simple.
But when you run into a team like Wichita Trinity Academy, you can throw all logical ideas of simplicity out the door.
The Warriors fell Tuesday night to the Knights, 59-51, in a game that started off as a potential barn-burner. But poor field goal percentage and a four-point second quarter proved to be the key ingredient to the Warriors' second CVL loss in the past two weeks.
Marion and Trinity battled back and forth throughout the first quarter, but the Knights came away with a five-point advantage at the quarter's end.
In the second quarter, the Knights poured it on defensively, forcing the Warriors to chuck it from behind the arc. After the first half, Marion found itself trailing 32-17.
Just when you thought the Warriors were out of the game, the Marion team began to rally back.
In the third quarter, after homecoming festivities crowned Clayton Chamberland and Caitlin O'Dell as king and queen, the Warriors went on royal-worthy run.
Marion closed out the third quarter with momentum and more importantly only trailed by 12.
In the final quarter, the Warriors closed the margin to as little as three points with 1:39 remaining after Nickolas Hett connected on the three-point try.
But a solid night at the free-throw line for the Knights proved to be the Warrior's undoing.
Jared Hett led the Marion team with 19 points. Chamberland and Tyler Stubenhofer finished with nine and eight respectively.
The Warriors traveled Tuesday to Council Grove to battle the Braves. On Thursday, Marion hosts Chase County to close out the regular season.
