With the postseason starting this week and all of his players finally available to play, MCHS head coach Howard Beth sees another region title within reach.

“If we stay within the limits of what we can do, not go outside them and play together as a team, we’re capable,” Beth said. “We’ve got to have some kids step up, though. Nobody has to play better than they are, but they can’t have a night where they shoot bad or don’t rebound. We don’t have to play above our game to win the region. That’s good to know. At the same time, if we play below our game, there’s four or five teams that can beat us.”

Juniors Jessica Holder (24.6 points, 10.8 rebounds per game) and Hannah Ellis (8.8 points, 7.8 rebounds per game) are the only two Lady Marshals to play in all 29 games this year. Most of the other players missed one or two games with Jordan Gilland (24 games) and Margaret Thomas (five) missing the most time.

The best example of what MCHS can do with a complete lineup was displayed Feb. 16 in an 82-48 win at Paducah Tilghman. Beth said he hopes the effort from that game will be duplicated through the postseason.

“Their roles will change slightly, but they’ll still be doing the things they understand they can do,” Beth said. “In the Tilghman game, we didn’t have kids try to do things they can’t do. They accepted what they can do and played together as a team. That’s what we have to do, but it’s not a total adjustment.”

MCHS opened postseason play Tuesday in the first round of the 4th District Tournament against Community Christian Academy, a team the Lady Marshals defeated twice during the season. However, the harshness of a 77-42 season-opening blowout was softened when MCHS struggled in a 59-46 win Jan. 12 on the Lady Warriors’ home floor.

“I’d put them almost even with Tilghman and Graves,” Beth said of CCA. “They’ve got height, which a lot of teams don’t have. They’ve got quick guards, and they shoot well.”

A win against CCA would have placed MCHS in a district title matchup against top-seeded Calloway County. The Lady Lakers defeated Murray in the first round Monday.

If recent history is an indicator, the talent gap between Marshall and Calloway has been closed significantly, Last season, MCHS defeated the Lady Lakers in two regular-season games and in the district final, with Calloway pulling an overtime upset in the region championship game. Calloway won the two season games with MCHS this year, and Beth said the difference between this year’s Lady Lakers and last year’s is clear.

“They play with a lot more confidence,” Beth said. “They’re solid, but they don’t go real deep on their bench, so that could be a factor.”

Getting their starters into foul trouble might be a key to success. Calloway relies on the ball-handling of point guard Samantha Butts and the inside play of a trio of 6-footers – Rachel Adams, Kayla Cunningham and Avree Fields.

“Inside, you’re talking about dealing with three kids and not just one,” Beth said. “They’re big inside and they don’t take bad shots. They don’t give up a lot of easy shots, and they don’t give up a lot in transition.”

While the three-game losing streak to Calloway can be used as motivation, Beth said he hopes it’s something that doesn’t have to be verbalized to his players.

With that in mind, how MCHS handles postseason pressure will be important, especially since Holder, Gilland and Ashley Smith are the only players with more than a few minutes playoff experience.

“We’ve got several days to have some good practices and get them mentally ready,” Beth said last week, heading into a week without any games. “Plus, the tournament is at our place, and that’s the first thing you look at.”

The performance of last year’s Lady Lakers can also be a motivator. Calloway struggled in the regular season, only to enter the region tournament with the toughest draw – having to face region powers Tilghman, Graves County and Marshall in order to advance to the Sweet 16.

“They came up to the challenge, and if they maintain that and continue to improve like they have, it’ll make it that much tougher,” Beth said of a potential region meeting with Calloway.

Past the Lady Marshals and Lady Lakers, Beth said Graves and Tilghman are the next best contenders.

“Graves and Tilghman are dangerous, but we’ve still got to get past CCA,” Beth said. “There are teams capable of putting together a game and beating one of the top teams, but I don’t think there’s one that can win three in a row. It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely.”

Graves’ chances will be highlighted by the play of Brittany Young, arguably the most talented guard in the region. However, Beth said region winners of the past have relied more on a team concept, something the Lady Eagles have struggled with this season.

“It’s hard for other kids to play as hard as they should if they’re never involved in scoring,” Beth said. “When you rely on one person almost totally, that person might be able to win you the game, but it’s hard for her to win three straight games in the regional tournament.”

Beth’s region darkhorse is Ballard Memorial, which advanced to the second round of the State All “A” Classic and lost only three region games this season.

“Ballard is capable of beating anybody,” Beth said. “They’ve got a good full-court press, they cause people to make mistakes, so they’re very dangerous.”

In the end, Beth said, the team that wins will be the team that is doing the best job of keeping its opponent off the scoreboard.

“All tournament games come down to who plays the best defense,” Beth said. “When March comes, you have to play defense if you want to win.”

The region tournament bracket will be filled Saturday morning. Murray State University will host the tournament, with the girls’ first round games set for Monday and Tuesday at Racer Arena. The remainder of the tournament will be played at the Regional Special Events Center.

MARSHALS:

Marshall must set tone in early playoff games

By Caitlin Wardlow
Tribune-Courier Reporter

DRAFFENVILLE – With a 23-5 overall record and a four-game winning streak, the Marshall County High School boys’ basketball team entered the postseason Monday with a win over Community Christian Academy.

Since a team only has to beat its first opponent in the district tournament to advance to the region tournament, the Marshals, under the direction of head coach Gus Gillespie and associate coach Ron Winemiller, have secured their place in the 1st Region tournament.

Winemiller said the Marshals look forward to the 1st Region play, but not before hoping for a fifth consecutive district tournament championship.

“We’ve won the district tournament the last four years,” Winemiller said, “so that’s certainly a goal to win that for the fifth time. The big thing about the postseason is that you’ve got to be ready to go. There’s no bad game, no second chance.”

Winemiller said he wants the Marshals to come out Thursday night playing with great intensity and treated the game against CCA like a preparation game before playing the winner of Tuesday’s game between Murray and Calloway County (results unavailable at press time).

“We don’t want to come out and be flat and not show emotion,” Winemiller said. “We want the kids to really come out with a lot of intensity and lot of energy in [Thursday’s] game, and just kind of set the tone for the entire postseason.”

As far as the rest of the postseason goes, Winemiller said he thinks that MCHS, Paducah Tilghman and Graves County are probably the favorites.

“You could throw Lone Oak in that discussion with no problem,” Winemiller said. “They beat Graves, they beat Tilghman, they gave us a heck of game, so those are probably the four teams I would say would be the consensus for the regional championship.”

Winemiller views Tilghman the biggest threat to the Marshals. The teams have met three times this year, with the Blue Tornado winning the last two.

“Tilghman’s kind of been our nemesis,” Winemiller said. “That maybe wasn’t a great rivalry when [Gillespie] and I got here, but now it’s certainly turned into one.

“Graves is a threat,” Winemiller added, “because we’re the two biggest high schools in the 1st Region and anytime we get together, because we’re close together and a lot of people work together, there’s a lot of bragging rights that go into that game.”

So what do the Marshals plan on changing to prepare for the chance of meeting their rivals? Nothing.

“We don’t change much,” Winemiller said. “Coach [Gillespie] is big on routine. Even when he’s been gone this year, we’ve kept the same routine. I haven’t changed much; our terminology has all stayed the same. When he’s come back, he’s been able to come right back in with no transition problems at all. He had to be gone for a couple weeks here and I stepped right back in.”

Winemiller said the transitions have been seamless because both he and Gillespie share many of the same philosophies when it comes to coaching basketball.

“Even if we were doing the same thing, if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, sometimes you have a hard time doing it,” Winemiller said. “But offensively, defensively, our philosophies are so much along the same line that we’ve had no problems with that. We’ll keep the same routine, keep the same preparation. We’re 23-5; we’re not going to blow out the house to try to rebuild it right now. I feel pretty good with where we’re at. We’ll keep plugging along and see where that takes us.”

Winemiller attributes a lot of the Marshals’ winning season to lack of injuries the team has faced.

“The big thing we’ve done is that we’ve stayed healthy,” Winemiller said in a knock-on-wood statement. “We’ve had some sickness, but as far as the injury, we’ve really stayed away from that. We’ve had some guys’ minutes go up and some guy’s minutes go down throughout the year, but for the most part we’ve played the same nine or 10 guys in the same situations all the time. The guys know what their roles are and they know how to react to that when they get in a big game.”

An example of a big game is, of course, the 1st Region Tournament. Winemiller is confident that with the last several season the Marshals have had, the team won’t get cold feet when it comes to playing on the biggest stage – the Sweet 16 at the University of Kentucky.

“If you’re not going to dream about playing at Rupp [Arena], then I think as a coach you need to find something else to do,” Winemiller said. “You want to set goals for your kids. I just talked to them about this [last week] about realistic goals. There are certain teams who can talk about playing at Rupp Arena and winning the regional and it’s not going to happen for them, but there are certain teams in this region who have that goal and have that dream, and it can happen for them.”

A very important element that goes into playing in the region tournament is the draw.

“Everybody talks about the draw,” Winemiller said. “You have what you think is your good draw and your bad draw. I talked to some guys who have been around here a long time and they talk about how every time Marshall’s won it or every time Marshall’s made it to the finals is when they got what they didn’t think was a very good draw.”

Winemiller said he and the team were going to prepare the same way whether they drew the No. 1 rated team in the region or the No. 8 team.

“I think you just have to go play. We find out on Saturday who we play, and that’s who we’re going to play. You can’t sit around a feel sorry for yourself or be happy because that’s when you get beat. That’s when you slip up and let someone get you. We’re just going to go out and play because these kids are winners, and they’ve shown that all year.”

Some credit goes to Gillespie, Winemiller said, for setting up the Marshals’ schedule the way he did.

“This is why coach set the schedule up the way he did – to prepare them for the regional tournament. It does you no good to play five or six or eight or 10 teams that you’re going to pound by 30 or 40 points. We don’t play those kind of teams. I would say that us and Tilghman probably played the best two schedules in the region. I think that’s what [Tilghman head coach Brad Stieg] tried to prepare his kids for is the region, and that’s what coach Gillespie is trying to prepare our kids for.”

Winemiller said the bottom line is that the Marshals will just go play the game.

“You just have to go play,” Winemiller said. “You can’t get freaked out about who you’re playing, you just have to go play. You get to this time of the year and your kids just have to go play, make plays and not worry about what they’re playing for.”

The boys side of the region tournament will begin next Wednesday at Murray State University’s Regional Special Events Center. The draw for the tournament bracket is set for Saturday morning at RSEC.