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Tigers advance: Marietta mauls New Lex; will play for sectional title

MIKE MORRISON The Marietta Times Marietta High’s Trent Dawson goes up for a basket during a sectional semifinal basketball game against New Lexington Wednesday at Jim Myers Gymnasium in Logan.

LOGAN — One season ago Marietta Tiger Zach Deskins was robbed of his chance to participate in the postseason after he lost the second half of his junior year to a severe knee injury.

A full year of hard work later, Deskins saw that hard work pay off as he tossed in a game-high 17 points to lead the Marietta Tigers to a 62-50 win over the New Lexington Panthers to open sectional tournament play Wednesday at the Jim Myers Gymnasium at Logan High School.

Deskins paced three Marietta players in double figures as the eighth-seeded Tigers survived a fourth quarter comeback attempt by New Lexington to eliminate the ninth-seeded Panthers for the second straight season and advance to the finals.

“Zach (Deskins) is really playing great for us right now,” said Marietta first-year head coach Glenn Dawson of his senior guard. “We watched him at the beginning of the season and he struggled mobility wise but it really turned about the midway point and he is really playing well now.”

Marietta started out strong as its full-court pressure defense seemed to rattle the Panthers as the orange and black jumped out to a 15-6 lead at the end of the first period.

Deskins canned one of his two triples in the game to push the Tiger lead to a dozen before New Lexington won the rest of the quarter 11-5 to cut the MHS lead to 23-15 at the intermission.

Marietta forced 13 turnovers in the first half alone.

The Tigers increased their lead to as many as 18 points in the third quarter before a Nick Pickrell 3-pointer closed out the quarter with New Lexington trailing 41-26.

MHS increased its lead to 17 at 47-30 with five minutes to play before the Panthers came off the mat thanks to the hot hand of Luke Barnett to close the lead to just six with 2:22 to play.

Barnett scored 12 of his team-high 16 points in a two- minute stretch that closed the Marietta lead to 49-43.

“They just started playing with a lot of energy and we didn’t,” said Deskins, who also pulled down eight rebounds in the game. “Early on we were getting after it but we just kind of sagged off, but we eventually came together again and got the win.”

A pair of freebies by Deskins increased the lead to eight and an Isaac Danford inside score pushed the lead back to double digits.

New Lexington elected to go into foul mode and test the Tigers at the free throw line where they responded by making 27-of-37 free throw attempts to seal the deal.

Junior guard Gage Herb led the way by making all 10 of his free throw attempts as the Tigers managed to hold the Panthers at bay the rest of the way to set up a matchup with number-one seed Vinton County on Saturday night.

“We weathered the storm but we are a much better team than we played like tonight,” said Dawson. “We have got a lot of stuff we need to get cleaned up but fortunately we were able to win the game.”

Joining Deskins in double figures for the Tigers was Trent Dawson with 11 points and Herb with 10.

Senior guard Turner Hill added eight points, seven steals and seven rebounds to the MHS attack while fellow senior Travis Moore also totaled eight points while yanking down a game-high 10 rebounds.

“We knew we weren’t going to be able to walk away with it and that we were going to have to fight for it and that’s the way it turned out,” said Moore. “It got a little rough tonight but an ugly loss is always better than a pretty win.”

New Lexington, which was paced by Barnett’s 16 while Seth Russell chipped in with 12, saw its season come to an end with a 10-13 record.

Marietta (14-9) will have a few days off to recover before taking on a Vinton County team that sports a 21-2 record and a top 10 ranking in the Division II state rankings.

“We are going to have to come out with a lot of energy, knock down some shots and play great defense,” said Deskins.

Coach Dawson feels like his team is more than capable of pulling off an upset.

“We are going to have to play our very best basketball,” said Dawson. “They are a great basketball team so we are going to have to come in here and play as good as we can play and if we do that we are going to give them a battle.”

Tip-off time Saturday night is scheduled for 7 p.m.

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