Confident Marmion sinks St. Edward
Before tipoff against St. Edward, Marmion boys basketball coach Ryan Paradise stated several things his team had to do to win.
Execute against St. Edward’s switching defenses, he said. Contain point guard Davontae Elam. Rebound. Keep tempo in Marmion’s favor.
“Well,” St. Edward coach P.J. White said afterward, “I think they did all of that.”
Holding St. Edward to 13 field goals and winning the battle of the boards 34-22, the host Cadets dealt St. Edward its second loss of the season, 62-43 in a Suburban Christian Conference crossover on Saturday in Aurora.
“We did play great defense on the guards, so I felt we kind of took them out of what they wanted to do at first and they kind of got flustered and they didn’t really adjust to it as well as we adjusted to them,” said Marmion senior guard Jordan Glasgow, who came out strong and finished with 10 points for the Cadets (7-9).
Strength was one factor White saw go against St. Edward (15-2).
“You have to give credit to Marmion,” said White, who sent in the reserves with 3:06 left in the game, trailing 56-41.
“They were bigger, faster and stronger and out-hustled us the whole game,” he said. “That’s the key. You do that to a team, 99 percent of the time they’re going to win.”
White noted that in Friday’s SCC Gold win over Marian Central the Green Wave enjoyed a 24-point fourth quarter. By halftime Saturday they mustered 17 points.
Tied 9-9 after the first quarter, Marmion did not commit a second-quarter turnover against varied zone defenses while doubling St. Edward’s total to lead 25-17 after 16 minutes.
Trailing 13-11 early in the second quarter, Glasgow and 6-foot-5 junior Jake Esp fueled an 11-2 run to lead 22-15. Elam then scored off an offensive rebound, but Glasgow countered with a free throw and a transition lay-in, converting Mike Sheehan’s baseball pass off a defensive board.
“We run a lot in practice. that’s how we get a lot of buckets,” said Esp, whose 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting led all scorers. Sheehan added 12 points and the invaluable Danny Bicknell scored 6 points with 10 rebounds, his fifth straight game with double-digit rebounds.
St. Edward guard Joe French keyed an early third-quarter rally, his three-point play in this foul-prone game bringing the Green Wave within 29-25 at 5:02 of the third.
Esp converted his own three-point play, and Glasgow gave Marmion a 10-point lead with English off the glass. Corey Friel made his first basket count for 3 and a 41-30 Cadets lead after three quarters.
After St. Edward’s active Danny Favela opened the fourth quarter with a putback, Friel scored off a Glasgow assist then swished a free throw to open a 44-32 lead with 6:35 to play. The Green Wave traded baskets for the next couple minutes, but by then trading baskets wasn’t enough.
“We already lost one, so we know what it’s like to lose,” said French, whose 14 points topped Elam with 9 and Nick Duffy with 8. “We’re just going to come back, get back at it at practice, keep working hard. We’ll get back to our ways before long.”
Winning for the sixth time in nine games, Marmion hopes this is the way of the future.
“Towards the beginning of the season I don’t know if we had much confidence,” Esp said, “but now our confidence is way up.”