Batavia blows out Marmion behind Tousana's 33

Trent Tousana nailed his final 3-pointer, quickly pointed at the sky before flashing three fingers toward the basket to put a capstone on his banner night.

Tousana, Batavia's senior guard, appears to have the green light to shoot as much as he wants - wherever he wants.

The confidence in his shot selection, particularly beyond the arc, was visibly on display during Batavia's 89-61 victory over Marmion on Wednesday.

" ... It's my team," said Tousana, who nearly had a triple-double with seven assists and six rebounds to go along with his career-high 33 points.

"[Batavia coach Jim] Nazos just lets me create shots for myself and other people. I started off a little off [in the first half] and then [came] back into the second half I started creating shots for other people and started hitting shots, eventually myself," Tousana continued. "I drove more because my shot wasn't there as much but it's a good team win, for sure."

Tousana, who shot a perfect 6-for-6 from the field in the fourth quarter, had 10 points at the half while senior forward Ethan Ivan, a Wisconsin-Parkside recruit, added 23 of his 27 points by the break.

"It's so easy to play with him because you [can] drive; you can just kick it and count on him to make it," Tousana said of Ivan. "If he's not open, he's going to back-cut and it's an easy layup and an easy pass. He's got good hands and he's ready for any pass that I throw to him."

Suffice to say, Ivan's offseason emphasis in the gym - multiple times a week - was put into his shooting.

"Just straight threes [and] all areas of the court shots," Ivan said. "That's definitely been a big thing for me. Also, strength - I've also worked on that a bunch."

Ivan and Tousana's on-court connection is evidently paying off for the Bulldogs (3-0) thus far.

"[He and I] played a lot together in the summer, so that definitely helped with chemistry," Ivan said. "Now [Tousana] really sees when I'm open and I see when he's open."

"Two guys that have worked a lot," Nazos said. "The work they put in - countless hours of work and there's so many things behind the scenes that kind of bring it out here and it shows what they've done silently."

Austin Ambrose also added 12 points and 13 rebounds for the Bulldogs in the complete effort.

Marmion (2-1) struggled out of the gate to a seven-point deficit before it ballooned due to the lack of rebounds and subpar quality shot selection as the possessions grew.

"Batavia is an extremely skilled team, extremely experienced team," first-year Cadets coach Joe Piekarz said. "We have a lot of sophomores and juniors on this team. This was their first time with any sort of crowd; any sort of experience like that and I think it took them aback a little bit. They needed time to settle in and that's the lesson we're taking from this: That's not the last time we're going to be in that kind of situation."

"If we take some of the things that we learn from that and use them going into the next [set of] games, then, fine, we'll sacrifice a tough loss on Nov. [24] to be better in the future."