Patriots refuse to lose, come back to defeat Chickasaws

Patriots refuse to lose, come back to defeat Chickasaws

Marion Patriots fights to win their first conference game of the season

sports@theeveningtimes.com

The Marion Patriots (2-1 overall, 1-1 conference) completed a ferocious comeback to win their conference opener, defeating the Blytheville Chickasaws (2-3, 0-1) 47-45.

Trailing by 11 points to start the fourth quarter, the outcome looked bleak for the Patriots. However, the Marion guys found a fire deep within themselves that led the team on a 18-5 run in the final eight minutes of play. The Patriots trailed the Chickasaws from mid-way through the first quarter until the 1:46 mark of the fourth when Shaun Doss converted on an old-school three-point play by drawing contact while making a lay-up and sinking his free throw, giving the Patriots a 44-43 lead.

Doss led the Patriots in scoring with 16 points on the night, 12 of which came in the final quarter of play.

“Shaun Doss is our leader,” Marion Patriot Head Coach Irving Clay said. “He made shot after shot. He just did it all down the stretch. However, he didn’t do it by himself.

It was a team effort. The team recognized he had the hot hand and gave the ball to him. So, that’s the sign of a good team.”

With the game tied at 45 apiece, Clay slowed the ball down and took advantage of the lack of a shot clock in high school basketball.

“We wanted to slow it down, bring it out and make them play defense,” Clay said. “They’re strength was the zone and we wanted to get them in a man to man so we could attack the basket.”

The strategy paid off as Timothy Ceaser was fouled on a lay-up attempt and sent to the free throw line.

Ceaser made the first of two free throws before tracking down his own rebound after missing the second. Ceaser dished the ball to Doss who was sent back to the line and made what would be the final point in the Patriots comeback.

With 2.5 seconds to play, the Chickasaws inbounded the ball San’Darius Gillespe who was unguarded behind the three-point arch. However, a charging Doss made it to Gillespe just in time to tip the Blytheville shooter’s shot, causing it to fall well short of the basket as time expired.

Though Doss finished the Patriot comeback, the rally was ignited in the third quarter by sophomore Keyshawn Woods. Woods almost single-handily chipped away at the Chickasaws lead. The Marion point-guard came out of the half and scored 10 of the Patriots 14 points in the third. Woods finished the game with 15 points.

Though impressed by his team’s ability to claw their way back into the game and escape their home court with a hard-earned conference win, Coach Clay still sees many areas which his team needs to improve on.

“They got too many easy buckets by driving to the basket,” Clay said. “We definitely need to work on playing help-defense.”

The Patriots seek their second conference victory Friday at Green County Tech in Paragould at 5 p.m. The Patriots don’t play in their home gym of Patriot Arena again until January 3rd, 2017 when the team takes on Forrest City.

By Collins Peeples