Washington basketball teams lose to Marion

The Washington Demons basketball teams lost their final game of 2016, Monday, Dec. 19, as the girls lost by a 40-point difference and the boys were beat by only a four-point margin.

In the girls? game, Marion got off to a five-point lead before Washington would get on the board with a Sarah Nacos trey.

Marion would add another two before Nacos would score another 3-pointer taking Marion?s lead to within one.

Marion would respond with a 3-point shot of their own before Nacos would add two more points to the Demons side of the scoreboard, but Marion would run away with the lead the rest of the quarter after a free throw by Morgan Brinning going up 9-25 after one.

Marion would score on a free throw at the start of the second quarter followed by another successful 3-point shot for Nacos but Marion would go on to score another 17 and would hold Washington back to only score five more taking the score to 17-43 at the half.

It would be all Marion in the third quarter as they would score an additional 17 points and only allowing Washington to score five, all of which came from Isabel Bailey.

With the continuous clock running in the final frame, only three baskets were made scoring six points. Washington would get two of those coming from Nacos and Marion would have the others taking the final score to 24-64 in Marion?s favor.

The boys? game would start off with Marion scoring the first four points before Tanner Coleman put Washington on the board with a 3-point shot.

The two teams would go back and forth the remainder of the first quarter with Washington holding on to a six-point lead 21-15.

The back-and-forth scoring continued in the second quarter with both teams remaining close the entire time with Washington ahead 33-28 at the break.

Marion would start to turn things around in the third quarter taking advantage of turnovers and fouls and turning them into points and taking the score 41-38 in their favor.

Washington tried to recover in the fourth quarter, but the fouls and turnovers continued to plague the Demons and even with a Coleman 3-pointer at the final buzzer, it wasn?t enough, as Marion would win 66-62.

Coach Collin Stark said the team came out well after halftime. ?We took it out to an eight-point lead and then Coach Ben Obermann told me that it was an 11-0 run.

?Other teams will make runs, but we need to keep it to five or six points. We can?t let them have a mega-run.

?It completely changes the momentum. We need to take the punches they give us but we have to come back with our own in that situation.?

With last Friday?s game at Keokuk postponed, it did have an impact on last night?s action.

?I?ve seen it both ways,? Stark said, ?where the added time off allows us to be fresh. I wish we would have had that game.

?The last time I saw them was Thursday, so that?s a long time not knowing how we would respond. I thought we came ready to play tonight, but we didn?t quite make enough plays.?

This was the last game before going into the holiday break. What will be the team?s focus between now and their first game in January?

?We have a lot of things we need to do, but mainly we will execute offense and keeping our defensive intensity our whole game.

?Many times we have good defense and other times we just broke down. It all goes back to communication. Those are the key things.

?We can always shoot better and control the ball more and work in baby steps as we approach the second half of the season.?