Patriots celebrate Senior Night with win against Paragould

Patriots celebrate Senior Night with win against Paragould

Lady Pats’ playoff hopes end with loss to Lady Rams

Marion School District Senior night was full of positives and negatives for the Marion Patriots on Tuesday night. The Patriots (20-3 overall, 13-0 5A East) put on an impromptu slam dunk contest against the Paragould Rams (6-18, 0-13). The Lady Patriots (14-13, 6-7) were officially eliminated from playoff contention with their loss to the Lady Rams (18-8, 8-5).

The Patriot teams honored their seniors by letting all of them start in their final home games. The seniors for the Lady Pats were Mikaya McAdory, Tashlee Milow, Taylor Lee, Alundra Brister and Jalexia Burgess. Timothy Ceaser, Tristan Haymon, Keyshawn Woods, Decoreio Smith and Trey Scott were the seniors for the Marion boys.

“I’m going to remember this group for always playing hard,” Lady Patriots Head Coach Shunda Johnson said about her seniors after the game. “They always did what we asked of them and they always gave it their all.”

“All year long, they’ve played good defense,” Marion Head Coach David Clark said about his senior’s performance against the Rams. “They did a great job limiting chances tonight and had a lot of fun.”

The night started with a must-win game for the Lady Pats against the Lady Rams. The Lady Pats started the night with a strong inside attack from McAdory and junior guard Joi Montgomery. The pair had all but two of Marion’s 12 first quarter points.

However, the Lady Rams are one of the few teams in the conference with a size advantage over the Lady Pats, and they were able to capitalize on it. Paragould’s Zoey Beasley owned the paint for the Lady Rams in the second quarter, where they outscored Marion 12-3 to take a 21-15 lead at halftime.

The third quarter has been the best all season for the Lady Pats, and that trend continued against the Rams. Paragould still got their shots in the paint, but the Lady Pats trimmed the Lady Rams’ lead to four after three quarters, led by a nine point quarter by Montgomery.

The two teams would match buckets in the fourth with neither team taking an advantage offensively.

Both teams scored eight points in the final quarter, but that would be enough for Paragould to survive with a 43-39 final score.

Marion’s loss would officially knock the Lady Pats out of playoff contention and punch Paragould’s ticket to the tournament in Lake Hamilton. A Marion win would have put them in the four seed and in control of their destiny against Jonesboro on Thursday, but they are now two games behind Paragould with one game left on the schedule.

“We have not been a solid defensive group all season,” Johnson said when asked about the year as a whole. “We know what other teams are going to do, we know what they’re going to run, but we had a rough time executing our plans defensively.”

Zoey Beasley was the leading scorer for the Lady Rams with 17 points, all but one of which came in the paint. Marion’s Montgomery led all scorers with 19 points, followed by McAdory with seven points.

After the presentation of the seniors, the 5A East conference champion Marion Patriots took the court against a Paragould Rams team that is still looking for their first conference win this season. Despite the rough season, the Rams seemed prepared for the challenge, making four three-pointer in the first quarter and only trailed 1813 heading into the second. Coach Clark decided to switch to a full court press in the middle of the second quarter, opening up a barrage of dunks and transition layups as the Pats outscored the Rams 27-4 in the quarter. Woods and junior guard Detrick Reeves had nine and eight points respectively in the quarter.

Marion went into halftime with a 45-17 lead and played the majority of the second half with a running clock. Senior night would end nicely as the Pats outscored the Rams 24-11 for the 69-28 final score.

“Paragould was only shooting threes in the first quarter, so we wanted to stop them from even shooting them,” Clark said about the defensive switch in the second quarter. “Tim is a big presence inside, so they weren’t attacking the paint.”

Woods led all scorers in the game with 20 points, followed by Ceaser with 16 points and Reeves with 14 points. Marion also recorded four blocks in the game with two from Ceaser, one from Woods and one from sophomore guard Darrius Waterford.

By Tyler Bennett