The Dirty Thirty

The Dirty Thirty

Latham’s big night keeps Marion perfect in league play

Sports Editor LITTLE ROCK — Quite literally, Marion senior A.J. Latham started scoring before his teamʼs game ever officially began and didnʼt stop until the gameʼs final horn had buzzed.

Lathamʼs night began at the free throw line shooting a pair of charities thanks to a technical foul on Little Rock Centralʼs Gregory Johnson prior to the tip-off. He split the shots.

When the dust cleared, and his Marion Patriots claiming a 71-69 win against a scrappy group of Tigers, Latham had hit for 31 points, the most by a Marion player in over two years.

Marion (9-6 overall, 4-0 7A/6A-East) would need all of Lathamʼs offensive outburst to survive on the road. The Pats hit the ground running in the Capital City, leading 24-11 after the first quarter, only to trail by a bucket at 51-49 entering the fourth quarter.

“This was a good measuring stick for us,” said 11thyear Marion head coach Irving Clay. “We had a nice, big lead but then we see some slippage. We got out of character, so to speak. We stopped doing the things that we did to get that lead in the first place.”

The thing that got Marion to that big lead was the dynamic duo of Latham and junior forward Shaun Doss. Latham hit for 12 of his game-high total in the first quarter, including a buzzer-beating three-point basket from behind the timeline to make Marionʼs lead 13 points after eight minutes. Doss added six of his own in that frame, including a highlight-reel quality dunk on the possession prior to Lathamʼs heave that worked the partisan Little Rock Central crowd into a frenzy.

However, a fresh unit entered in the gameʼs second quarter and the Tigers took full advantage. Little Rock Central knocked down four of their nine three-point attempts in the gameʼs second stanza, coming all the way back to tie the game at 27-27 before the Pats scored three of the final four points of the half to lead 30-28 at the break.

“We subbed some guys and we made some illadvised passes, took some ill-advised shots and just didnʼt defend well,” explained Clay. “We know that everybody is gonna make a run, but I didnʼt panic and those guys actually put together a good three minutes at the end.”

After the half, Marionʼs starters were re-inserted, but Little Rock Central continued to mash the gas pedal. The Tigers would close the quarter on a 13-4 run to nab a 51-49 lead after the third quarter.

The fourth quarter would feature one tie and four lead changes.

Perhaps the deciding sequence in the game came when Marion senior Marion head coach Shunda

Johnson. “They rattled one of my young guards a little bit. I felt like we did get the ball to the places that we wanted it to go, in the middle of the court, but we didnʼt do anything with it there a lot of times.”

Marion trailed the heavily- favored Little Rock Central squad just 24-20 at halftime and had controlled the tempo in the first half, by and large.

In addition, the Lady Tigers struggled from the field, making just 8 of their 27 attempts before halftime. Several of those misses were from pointblank range, and Marion as a team accounted for a pair of blocks, as well.

Following the trip to the lockers, Little Rock Central tuned up their defense and doubled their efforts on the offensive glass, which paid huge dividends.

The Lady Tigers forced Marion into 12 second-half turnovers, many leading to easy transition buckets as a means to jump-start their offense and Little Rock Central won the rebounding title from Marion by a decisive 43-28 margin, including 17 on the offensive glass, to pull away.

“Weʼre big, but weʼre small at the same time,” Johnson explained of her teamʼs frontcourt players, referring to their lanky frames. “If youʼre built like that, it makes it tough to rebound unless you block out and go butt-togut, like we teach, and we didnʼt do that tonight.”

Little Rock Centralʼs Kiara Williams, who scored 14 points and posted 10 rebounds, authored perhaps the key sequence of the whole game in the third period. Williams went on a personal 8-2 run, all on offensive stickbacks, to stake her team to its first double-digit advantage at 32-22 and 3:48 left in the third period. The Lady Tigers would eventually lead 37-22 entering the fourth period.

The extra significance of Williamsʼs run was the two points that Marion posted in that same time. When Jakyya Clay scored on a lay-up with 5:35 left, Marion trailed just 28-22, but it would also mark the last Lady Pats field goal of the night. That accounted for a basket-less drought of 13 minutes, 25 seconds of game action.

Little Rock Centralʼs largest lead of the night doubled as the gameʼs final score.

The Lady Pats were led by Clayʼs six points, while Tei Boston, Kennedi Boykins and Ebony Day all hit for five apiece.

Tyquesha Selvy led Marion with nine rebounds and four assists.

Little Rock Central not only enjoyed Williamsʼs game-high 14 points, but they also got seven from Aaliyah Jackson and Jennifer Greenwood while Karen Black popped for six.

Marion is back at home on Friday night when they host Jonesboro in a key 6A-East conference matchup.

To date, Marion is 1-0 against their 6A-East rivals, while Jonesboro is 0-1. Only the top three teams in the 6A-East will advance to the Class 6A state tournament, held this year in Russellville.

Jonesboro swept the season series against Marion last season, and added a 59-55 non-conference win against the Lady Pats at this yearʼs Collierville DragonFire Invitational over Christmas break.

Tip-off at Patriot Arena is scheduled for 6 p.m.

By Chuck Livingston