It’s usually beneficial to get off to a good start in order to win the game. In their game against Worthington on Friday night, the Marshall boys basketball team went above and above, opening with 28 points in a row and winning 73-34.
The contest followed Thursday night’s 85-40 loss to No. 5 Mankato East. Marshall, however, didn’t waste any time in hanging its head and emerged victorious.
“We just came out with a lot of energy. It’s everything that we work on in practice, we just came out and executed it,” Marshall forward Jayden Meister explained. “It’s about sticking together as a team. If someone’s feeling down, you’ve got to have another man come pick him up and we did that great as a team, everyone’s there for each other.”
The contest began with the Marshall defence keeping the Trojans scoreless for precisely ten minutes. Worthington didn’t put a stop to the drought until Alex Franson made consecutive layups and Cooper Mensink hit Braxton Koster with a back-of-the-back pass for a transition layup to make the score 28-0.
After earning a shooting foul, Morke Welbaka made two free throws to put the Trojans up. On the following possession, Worthington attempted to reach the line twice but failed.
Despite Marshall’s early lead, their scoring load was evenly divided. With 14 and 12 points, respectively, Franson and Mensink led the team. Mensink made two 3-pointers and was 7 of 11 from the field. Additionally, Mason Graven and Koster scored eight and seven points, respectively, and nine other Tigers made at least one field goal during the day.
“We have a lot of kids that come into practice and work hard each day, and it’s great to have nights like tonight when they have an opportunity,” Marshall head coach Travis Carroll explained. “I thought all the kids that had an opportunity to play tonight did a good job of executing on offense and the defensive end.”
For Marshall early on, transitional points were crucial. After Mensink earned a steal to set up his own basket, Graven made another layup off the steal after Jayden Meister tipped a ball and made a leaping save along the sideline.
Marshall finished the game with 15 steals overall, compared to Worthignton’s eight. Vierstraete, Graven, and Koster each provided two, while Mensink and Franson each recorded three. Carroll attributed Marshall’s early success in putting Worthington on its heels to his team’s capacity to defend players in the half-court and exert pressure on the full-court press.
Four minutes into the game, Koster made a three-pointer and then knocked the ball free from a Trojan’s handle to Meister, who then passed it up to Mensink on the wing for another three, forcing Worthington to call their first timeout with a 12-0 deficit. The Tigers were not deterred by the break, either, as Franson made a string of layups to extend Marshall’s lead to 16 points.
After Davion Xayarath and Koster caused a Worthington turnover by pressuring a ballhandler along the baseline, Graven made a layup with heavy contact to give his team two points even though he missed the and-1 free throw. He subsequently made another 3-pointer to make the score 20-0.
Throughout the game, Marshall outscored Worthington 24–19, including 10–1 on the offensive boards. Meister and Meier each pulled down three rebounds, while Xayarath had the most with four, two on each end of the court.
The Trojans went on a 10-3 run after Worthington’s initial points, but Marshall never let the visitors come within 20 points, maintaining the lead well into the first half. At the half, the Tigers had a 43–13 lead thanks to 12 points from Franson and 10 from Mensink.
Meister’s three-pointer on the opening play of the second half sent a message that the Tigers were not going to let up. The Trojans kept up their tough play, but they were never able to cut into the Marshall lead. The Tigers coasted to victory behind the reserves when they were able to extend their lead above the 35-point mark, which set off the running clock.
With the victory, Marshall is now 5-1 and will host Hutchinson (2-3) on Thursday at 6 p.m. The Tigers will want to maintain their momentum into next week after winning all four of their games by double digits thus far.
