Warriors win one, lose one
Sports reporter
After a 51-40 home victory Feb. 15 against Halstead, the Marion Warrior girls' basketball team fell Friday at Haven and Saturday against Hesston.
Junior Toni Gordon led Marion in the three games, averaging 11 points and 9.3 rebounds, including a 13-point, 11-rebound effort in the Hesston defeat.
With the 1-2 week, the Warriors dropped to 2-8 in the Mid-Central Activities Association, and 7-12 overall.
With sub-state play slated for next week, Warrior head coach Daryl Enos isn't looking too far ahead and just forgetting what the girls did last week.
"I didn't think we played that bad," he said.
In actuality they didn't.
During the Halstead game, the Warriors led the entire time. In a game that looked bad on paper (a 60-35 loss and 17.9 percent shooting) Enos thought his team showed fight in a loss to Haven.
Down 32-15 at the half, the girls battled to cut the lead to five before back-to-back threes thwarted their comeback attempt.
Finally, in Saturday's game against the favorite for the top seed in sub-state, Hesston, the Warriors showed they can hang with the best.
They put up 31 first-half points, and trailed by just seven at the break.
Although the Swathers would eventually win 68-51, Marion shot 47.8 percent for the game and forced 25 turnovers.
The one big problem: they turned it over 40 times themselves.
Gordon's play should excite Warrior fans after her recent two-week slump. Along with her impressive play against Hesston, she racked up 13 points, nine rebounds, three blocks, and four steals against Halstead.
Junior Allie Maddox, who suffered a concussion in late January, has averaged 7.7 points per game since her return. And senior Leann Thomas has connected on 23 of her last 32 free throws, (71.9 percent) after making just 12 of her first 29 (41.4 percent) on the season.
If the Warriors can keep getting solid play from that trio, strong rebounding from senior guard Sarah Williams, (5.8 over the past four games) and continued defensive help from junior Megan Hudson, (3.5 steals per game) Enos thinks they can do some damage.
He thinks the damage can be done even against a top team like Hesston who Marion will most likely have to go through to make it to the state tournament.
"We still think they are beatable," Enos said. "Obviously we have to play a much more controlled game."
For now the Warriors, who finished the season Tuesday with a senior-night game against Sterling, have to hope they can pull off a middle-of-the-pack sub-state seed and go from there.
"I'm not going to write us off just yet," Enos said. "And I don't think anyone else should either."
Once-in-a-season-play
Four-point plays don't happen very often. Especially as the turning point in a game.
On Feb. 15 Marion's Sarah Williams accomplished just that.
As the senior attempted a three-pointer from the left wing, she was knocked to the ground by a Halstead defender.
The shot swished through, and Williams turned a six-point lead late in the fourth quarter to a 10-point lead when she made good on the free throw. The shot ended the hopes of a comeback for the Dragons.
Williams finished with six points and six rebounds.
