SOUTHWEST 5A GIRLS REGIONAL: Marbury reaches new heights in win over UMS-Wright
By GRAHAM DUNN
Reggie Brown has been working with the Marbury basketball program for a decade. Last season, he came close to leading the boys’ team to a first in the Bulldogs’ program – a trip to Birmingham.
But, they came up short in the regional semfinals.
On Tuesday, the Marbury girls were able to finish the job with a school-first regional championship.
The Lady Bulldogs held of pesky UMS-Wright for a 75-68 win in the AHSAA Class 5A Southwest Regional final at Garrett Coliseum.
“It means a lot,” Brown said. “This is my 10th year at Marbury. I was in the Marines and I said I wanted to come back and coach basketball.
“I’ve had these seniors for five years, and they’ve set the foundation. Today was big.”
Marbury will make that first appearance in school history in the Class 5A state semifinals on Saturday, Feb. 27 and will face Carver-Birmingham at the Bill Harris Arena at 2 p.m.
“It’s something we’ve preached for a long time… Hard work will pay off one day,” Brown said. “We don’t have the tradition of some schools but we’ve preached hard work. It finally paid off.”
Marbury (18-4) enjoyed a big first half lead that shrunk to just three points by halftime. Although the Bulldogs never let go of the lead, it fell to as few as two points on several occasions in the second half, including the end of the third period, before they were able to pull away in the final minutes.
“We went in at halftime and told them – ‘let’s do what we do,’” Brown said. “We got the lead and put pressure on them. We just took our time, got the ball to the spots we wanted. And we were able to knock down a few.”
UMS-Wright (21-14) got an impressive performance from junior center Dorsey Parker, who pumped in 34 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and added a couple of blocked shots in a losing effort.
“We don’t score 68 points very often,” stated UMS-Wright coach Terry Canova. “We have to keep games in the 40s and 50s, so for us to score that much shows how much we worked. We didn’t rebound very well.
“So that speaks of the effort (Parker) gave tonight. She has that type of talent and this game allowed that to come out.”
Allyse Rudolph led Marbury with 21 points and Jazalyn Morrissette added 17 points with the majority coming at the foul line. She hit 13-of-14 attempts, most when her team was working to keep the lead.
“She’s a 70-percent shooter so she had a pretty good effort,” Brown said.
UMS-Wright never led in the game but had moments when they could either tie or take the lead. But turnovers and missed shots denied any chance of completing the comeback.
“They got the big lead early but they kept fighting, scratching, clawing,” Canova said. “I wished we had three or four more timeouts and we might have caught them.”
Marbury finished shooting 43 percent from the field and hit just four 3 pointers. The Bulldogs hit 20-of-28 free throws. They forced 17 UMS-Wright turnovers.