Lady Pats crush Lady Yellowjackets

Lady Pats crush Lady Yellowjackets

Marion dominant against Wynne, winning by 59 points.

sports@theeveningtimes.com

The Marion Lady Patriots (5-3 overall, 2-1 conference) dismantled the Wynne Lady Yellowjackets (0-9, 0-3) this past weekend 79-20. As water rained down onto Patriot arena outside, the Lady Pats rained down points on their conference foe inside the Patriots home arena.

The Lady Patriots starters only remained in for half of a first quarter which Marion’s ladies won 30-3.

Lady Patriots Head Coach Shunda Johnson relished in the opportunity to get some of her bench players more playing time and experience.

“We needed to be able to get some of those younger girls in,” Johnson said.

“I’m trying to get it to where whoever comes off the bench can contribute. If the younger girls can get out there and see themselves on film it will make it so much better for us to see where we need to improve.”

The three points scored by the Lady Yellowjackets in the first quarter represents the fewest points allowed by the Marion ladies in a single quarter, without the mercy rule being in affect, this season. Despite the stifling performance on the defensive side of the ball, Johnson believes her players could still be even more dominating defensively.

“My first line of defense is still not as strong as I would like it to be,” Johnson said. “We’re still working on guard containment. That just comes with repetition. I saw a couple of times that when Wynne penetrated our first line of defense the guards looked for help instead of trying to recover and that’s a bad habit. It’s something we’re going to have to work on every single day.”

Offensively, the Lady Patriots 58-9 halftime lead consisted of contributions from almost the entire team. Jakyya Clay, Tramauryia Marie Hunter and Tashlee Milow all accounted for 8 points apiece to lead a group of 13 ladies who scored during the first half of play.

“We were able to get the ball and advance it down the court quicker than we’ve been able to,” Johnson said. “The past three days we’ve been working on filling our lanes quickly and that gives us a better opportunity to score. If you’re players are able to run their lanes, you should have enough spacing and the guards should have enough vision to score.”

Even with the clock running continuously in the second half due to the mercy rule, the Marion ladies’ offense continued to pump out points at a high volume. Mikiya McAdory and Morgan Christian each scored 6 points in the second half to seal the victory for the Lady Patriots.

McAdory, Clay and Christian all finished the night with double-digits in scoring, pushing in 14, 12 and 10 points respectively.

Christian also tied AnnaLee Parker for rebounds as each lady snagged 7 boards. Clay and McAdory contributed to the rebounding effort as well, each player grabbing 6 boards. The Lady Patriots displayed unselfishness as a team, totaling 17 assists in the shorted matchup. Clay and Hunter led the Lady Pats in assists with 3 apiece.

With the victory over Wynne now in the rearview, the Lady Patriots shift their focus to the Nettleton Lady Raiders (9- 0, 4-0). The Lady Patriots travel to Jonesboro to face Nettleton on December 20th. Tip-off is at 5:00 p.m.

By Collins Peeples