Published: December 31, 2008 12:12 am         

Lion kings: Marshall claims Pizza Hut crown by dismantling TH North

TERRE HAUTE — Even in the fourth quarter, after Elvis had left the building and Marshall’s championship of the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic was all but assured, the student fans from Terre Haute North were still doing their best to come up with witticisms.

So the adult fans from Marshall — yes, Terre Haute, there are places where people besides the students actually cheer for their teams — had a comeback of their own.

“You can’t guard us,” they chanted repeatedly, and the Lions’ eventual 64-48 high school basketball victory had been summed up in four words.

“Marshall is a very fine basketball team, a very deserving champion, and they played extremely well,” said coach Todd Woelfle of the Patriots after the game. “They are hard to guard.”

The Patriots actually had some nice numbers of their own. They shot 53 percent from the field, won the rebound battle and committed just 10 turnovers.

But the Lions were even better — 61 percent from the field and just three turnovers of their own, which offset the rebound deficit considerably.

There were three ties and one lead change in the first quarter, the last deadlock at 12-12 after Justin Gant, on his way to a nine-point first quarter, converted a three-point play.

Marshall broke the tie with 2:15 left in the quarter on a 3-pointer by Lucas Eitel, then answered another Gant basket with the second first-quarter 3-pointer for unheralded Trey Brashear.

Although Brashear’s six first-quarter points were big, however, his best work was at the other end of the floor. His defense was pretty much eliminating Zach Harrison from North’s offense, and Gant — who had 15 of his team’s first 22 points — could only hold up for so long.

“Trey Brashear has been a huge player for us since the get-go,” coach Tom Brannan of the Lions said afterward. “He adds so much to this team; I don’t know what we’d do without him.

“He played awesome defense [Monday] on [Terre Haute South’s John Michael] Jarvis, and tonight he did a good job on Harrison too.”

“We knew we had to stay defensively composed,” Brashear said after the game. “We knew who [among the Patriots] could shoot, and we wanted to make it evident that their 3-point shooting wouldn’t be a factor.”

“We played great team defense,” said Dustin Morey. “Everybody had to guard Gant; he was playing great.”

Marshall broke away from the 18-16 first-quarter lead with a 12-2 run to open the second quarter. Then North had to change defenses, and Marshall’s three slashers — Taylor Duncan and the Eitel twins — took over.

“It was very important for us to get off to a good start and play with the lead,” Woelfle said later. “When we got behind, we had to trap [defensively], and that’s not our strength right now.

“Good teams make you pay, and [the Lions] made us pay. They spread us out … they’re good.”

Duncan wound up as Marshall’s leading scorer with 21 points, while Logan Eitel scored 19 and Lucas Eitel 13. Each of the twins had seven assists.

Gant was the only double-figure scorer for North with 21 of his own, and in a game with very few missed shots the leading rebounder for the night was North’s foul-plagued Thomas Anderson with five. Chase Jones had five assists for the Patriots.

“I’m a little prejudiced, but I think we may have had one of the toughest routes [to a Classic championship] ever,” said Brannan after the game, noting the Lions’ wins over consolation-bracket champion Owen Valley, Indiana’s top-ranked Class A team (Rockville) and its third-ranked Class 4A team (Terre Haute South, also ranked 97th nationally by one service). “Then we have to come back and play these guys [the Patriots]. That’s unbelievable. I’m super-proud of the boys; they’re great kids.”

“It was an awesome feeling at the end, up there getting that trophy,” said Taylor Duncan. “All that hard work really pays off … we knew we had to play hard; North is a reallay good team, but we played hard and came out.”

“It was just an awesome game,” said Lucas Eitel. “We played good from the first guy to the last guy.”

“We knew [the Patriots] were oversized with [6-foot-8] Gant and [6-6] Anderson, and at first they took advantage,” said Logan Eitel. “But we kept coming and were aggressive; we were confident tonight. Trey Brashear played great and Taylor Duncan [an omission from the all-tourney team] had a great tournament.”

“[The Patriots are] a good team,” said freshman Jacob Duncan. “We focused on boxing out, trying to stop their big guys. We had to play our game and push the ball up the floor.”

As the Lions look toward the rest of their season, they’ve probably acquired a new off-the-bench sparkplug in the younger Duncan, who drained meaningful 3-pointers in each of the last three games.

“I gained a lot of experience,” he agreed. “This was a really good atmosphere, and it will help us when the regionals come around.”

“It was awesome … the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in,” said Morey. “We’ve had an eye on this tournament the whole year; now we have to win the regional and the sectional.

“Playing these teams was unreal. We won’t see teams like this for a long time.”

“This tournament is great,” Lucas Eitel agreed. “You can’t get this kind of atmosphere [anywhere else]. It prepares you for the big stage, not to mention the caliber of teams we were playing.”

“It definitely helps us [for the future], knowing we can play in big-stage games,” said Brashear.

“We have so much confidence right now,” said Logan Eitel. “Hopefully this ended doubts in everybody’s mind [about potential postseason success].”

“I hope [winning this tournament] is huge for us [later in the season],” Brannan said. “It gives us confidence, and that’s what you have to have in March.”

The Lions won’t be the only team gaining from the experience, Woelfle said.

“I’m disappointed in the loss tonight, but I’m very happy with the way we played in this tournament and grew as a team,” the North coach said. “We’ll take the positives from this, and work to correct the mistakes.”



Terre Haute North 48

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Gant 9-12 0-0 3-3 4 0 1 21

Weatherford 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0

Anderson 3-6 0-1 2-4 5 0 4 8

Harrison 3-8 2-4 0-0 2 0 0 8

Jones 0-1 0-0 0-0 2 1 2 0

Gauer 3-6 0-1 1-2 4 1 0 7

Thompson 1-2 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 2

Sponsler 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 0 0 0

Bolden 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 2

Shipley 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Taylor 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Totals 20-38 2-9 6-9 *23 2 8 48

Marshall 64

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Morey 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 1 2 0

T.Duncan 9-11 3-3 0-0 3 2 3 21

Lu.Eitel 5-7 3-4 0-0 4 2 2 13

Lo.Eitel 8-15 0-2 3-3 4 2 1 19

Brashear 3-3 2-2 0-0 2 0 1 8

J.Duncan 1-4 1-4 0-0 0 0 1 3

Delp 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Cannady 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Tucker 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Grooms 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0 1 0

Bishop 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Wetnight 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0

Totals 26-43 9-16 3-3 *15 8 11 64

Terre Haute North 16 8 9 15 — 48

Marshall 18 16 15 15 — 64

FG Pct. — THN .526, Marshall .605. 3-pt FG Pct. — THN .222, Marshall .563. FT Pct. — THN .667, Marshall 1.000. (*) Includes team rebounds — THN 3, Marshall 1. Turnovers — THN 12, Marshall 5. Assists — THN 12 (Jones 5), Marshall 20 (Lu.Eitel 7, Lo.Eitel 7). Blocks — THN 3 (Anderson, Gant, Thompson), Marshall 1 (Lo.Eitel).

Next — North (5-5) plays Saturday at Evansville North and Marshall (12-0) has a home game that night against Tri-County.



Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic all-tournament team

Austin Akers, Northview

Logan Eitel, Marshall

Lucas Eitel, Marshall

Justin Gant, Terre Haute North

Zach Harrison, Terre Haute North

John Michael Jarvis, Terre Haute South

R.J. Mahurin, Rockville

Jake Odum, Terre Haute South

Jordan Pearson, West Vigo

Mitch Snyder, Casey