Lady Patriots fall to Nettleton

Lady Patriots fall to Nettleton

The Lady Raiders grabbed a commanding lead over Marion in the first half, in part by outre-bounding the Lady Patriots by 11 boards

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The Marion Lady Patriots headed into last Friday fresh off a 69-54 victory over Valley View (12-9 overall, 7-5 6A/5A-3 Conference) and on a twogame winning streak, but encountered their toughest competition of the season, eventually falling to the Nettleton Raiders (19-2, 11-1) 63-37 in Nettleton where the Raiders currently enjoy a 22-game winning streak. Though Marion (9-12, 57) trailed Nettleton just 97 with 2:42 left in the opening frame, the Raiders ended up pulling away early, leading at the end of the first quarter 187.

Contributing to the home team’s early lead, the Raiders dominated the glass. Nettleton outrebounded Marion 11-6 in the first quarter, including six offense boards, and held a 19-8 rebounding advantage with nine offensive rebounds by the time the buzzer sounded on a first half which saw the Raiders head into the locker room with a 34-15 lead.

“We just didn’t rebound,” said Marion head coach Shunda Johnson. “We did not get on the board. We didn’t rebound, and we couldn’t score on the offensive end. So, that hurt. I mean, if we give them free opportunities to score, they’re going to score.”

Not helping matters for the Lady Patriots, the visitors sank just 6-of-19 shots from the field and dropped in just 2-of-3 free throws in the first half.

Meanwhile the home team caressed the net to a tune of 13-for-32 while knocking down 7-of-11 attempts from the charity stripe.

Though trailing by 19 points mid-game, Johnson’s message to her squad was simple; there’s still another half to play.

“Chip away,” Johnson said. “Just try to chip in there. Go in there and play as strong and solid defense as possible. Try to chip away and prevent them from scoring and hopefully we can come out there and convert. We can get a stop and get a conversion. But, it didn’t really happy that way.”

Indeed, things only got worse for Marion in the third frame. The Lady Patriots shooting woes continued as Marion connected on just 4-of-18 shots. Meanwhile, Nettleton got even hotter from the field, pushing through 9-of-15 attempts.

The last of those Raider third-quarter shots was the most damming for Marion, as Nettleton got a pair of points right before the end of the stanza to give the home team a 30point lead as the fourth quarter began and induce the mercy rule which allowed the clock to tick away uninterrupted in the fourth quarter.

Senior guard Ashley Harney paced Marion in the loss, pumping in 10 points. Sophomore Joi Montgomery contributed nine points and four rebounds and senior Morgan Christian led the Lady Patriots on the glass with five total boards.

Now with six games left in the season, all conference contests, Johnson’s message to the Lady Patriots is again a simple one; end the year with a winning conference record by winning one game at a time.

“We still got time to get over 500 in the conference,” Johnson said. “You know, we just got to take it one game at a time. We got to get up for every single game. We can’t play against Nettleton like we played against Wynne.

We got to play and make adjustments. They have to make the adjustments. We can make adjustments from the sidelines as a coaching staff, but the girls still have to go out there and execute whatever our adjustments are.”

The journey to a winning conference record for the Lady Patriots begins tonight as Marion hosts Forrest City (7-13, 1-8) tonight for a 6:00 p.m. tipoff.

By Collins Peeples