Marshall height
Marshall's Jack Foley watches Friday night as his lay-up goes through against Edison. Three much smaller Eagles look on helplessly.

Washington, Edison not enough against balanced Marshall

Obviously the first thing that concerns opposing coaches about Marshall is its height. In a world where it seems half of high school teams lack any kind of post game, the Statesmen start 6’10” Jack Foley and 6’7″ Jordan James on their front line. It almost seems unfair.

It’s kind of a given Foley and James will do damage on this level no matter how much a defense sags down on them. The key for the Statesmen is whether their guards can open things up by draining shots to supplement the pair. A defensive-oriented team, Marshall’s chances this year really depend on having a balanced offense and knocking down shots.

On Friday night against Edison Marshall was able to do just that. Foley and James combined for 23 points, often with James dumping the ball to Foley in hi-lo sets, but the Statesmen also got good support from their guards. Robert Guenther had 10 points and Ryan Robinson 13 points off three three-pointers to lead the home team to the 64-40 victory.

Marshall's Robert Guenther attacks the hoop.
Marshall’s Robert Guenther attacks the hoop. The senior guard had ten points in the Statesmen victory.

“On a different night we don’t know, but we do have some guards that can knock it down,” Marshall coach Dan Hale said. “Tonight Ryan Robinson got going and hit some big shots and that kind of separated us. We have to knock down shots consistently. When people key on our two bigs we have to come up with other ways to score.”

Edison and coach Terry Henderson had a good game plan against the Statesmen. The Eagles essentially start five guards and usually try to speed up the pace on teams, but tonight they sought to slow things down to frustrate Marshall and limit possessions. While Marshall raced to an early lead Edison’s strategy was effective, as they only trailed 23-17 at the half. The Statesmen, used to teams trying to get up and down the floor against them to tire out their bigs, were unexpectedly a little flabbergasted at actually playing their pace for once.

“Hats off to them, they were really patient with what they did,” Hale said. “We kind of sped ourselves up unnecessarily early because we’ve been playing some pretty high tempo games lately.”

But despite uneven offensive play in the first half, albeit with good defense, Marshall still led. After halftime Marshall was able to hold the ball more and draw Edison’s defense out a little bit when the Eagles themselves started to get impatient. Then Marshall was able to punish the visitors on offense and force the Eagles into some rushed shots. That was all she wrote.

The Eagles might not have been close at all if not for guard-forward Marquis Washington. Although only around six feet tall he effectively functions as the team’s “center.” Not only did he do a respectable job on defense and rebounding against kids half a foot to almost a foot taller than him, he scored 23 of his team’s 40 points. It was an impressive performance in a losing effort for a guy who has been a workhorse for the Eagles all year.

The Eagles' Marquis Washington attacks the rim en route to two of his game-high 23.
The Eagles’ Marquis Washington attacks the rim en route to two of his game-high 23.

“We were good the first half slowing the pace down,” Washington said. “But in the second half we became a little bit too impatient, turnovers got to us, and it’s–it’s a blowout right now. We didn’t stick to our game plan and that’s on us.”

With the win Marshall (7-1, 12-5) stayed within one in the loss column of first-place Wakefield in Conference 13. Despite the loss, Edison (6-3, 11-8) remains in third place.

–Chris Jollay