Glasgow, Marmion come up big
Marmion’s 6-foot-4, 270-pound Ryan Glasgow occupied an area Aurora Central Catholic’s Robert DeMyers might otherwise dominate.
The Chargers’ defensive stalwart is out with a fractured fibula, though. Once Marmion utilized Glasgow in the high post, the visiting Cadets capitalized in Saturday’s sold-out Suburban Christian Conference Blue Division contest, 54-41.
“In the first quarter I only got one shot up and I kind of bricked it. Then in the second quarter I started to find my groove and in the second half we finally got really deep into our offense, were able to push it around, and it ended up good for me,” said Glasgow, who scored 15 points with 8 rebounds.
Loud, hot and electric — “as fun a high school game that I can remember as a player and a coach,” Marmion coach Ryan Paradise said — it was no surprise Marmion (4-3, 2-0) made only 2 of 8 first-quarter shots, trailing 11-8.
“We just needed to make it past those first few minutes of the first quarter because it’s a great atmosphere in there, but it’s nothing like we’d never seen before,” said Cadets forward Pete Stefanski, who led all scorers with 16 points.
Aurora Central (3-4, 1-1) led 14-13 on a Zach Flint free throw still midway through the second quarter. Glasgow, Stefanski and Johnny Peters closed the half on an 8-4 run for a 21-18 halftime lead, and Marmion never trailed again.
“I think it took realizing that it works,” Paradise said of getting the ball to Glasgow at the foul line for the pass or shot. “We can talk about it, we can say the ball needs to go into the high post. But I think our overall maturity level, we’re growing up a little bit.”
Jeff Garofolo’s 3 and 2 free throws widened the gap to 26-18, but ACC’s Joey McEachern had it within 27-22 on his scoop in traffic at 5:37 of the third quarter.
In one of several dry spells, the Chargers didn’t score again until 41 seconds remained in the third quarter, Marmion up 37-26 entering the fourth.
Also lacking forward Paul Kaminski with a dislocated thumb, ACC forced 22 turnovers with its full-court press, but made just 15 of 59 (25 percent) shots.
“I thought we were able to turn them over on a fairly consistent basis, but it didn’t do us any good,” ACC coach Nathan Drye said. “All it did was make us play offense again.”
A 13-2 run pulled ACC within 46-41 with 1:35 to play, but Marmion scored the last 8 points. After Glasgow’s 2 free throws for a 52-41 margin the Cadets student section chanted a stinging, “This is our house!”
That couldn’t have felt good, but Drye didn’t exactly disagree.
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance to win because I thought we just shrank from the spotlight,” he said.
“Just step up to the moment,” said McEachern, who scored 11 along with teammate Joe Medgyesi. “Just make more shots.”