Warriors fall short against No. 3 Trojans
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
The current Trojans were probably too young to remember the last time Marion got them on the hardwood.
Trojan coach Darrell Knoll was in his fourth year in 1992 when Stacey Sawyer scored a game-high 27 points in a 69-67 come-from-behind win over Hillsboro.
Since then, the Trojans have had their way with the neighboring Warriors when it comes to basketball.
Nothing has changed with the Trojans (13-0) continuing their dominance of Marion, easily downing the Warriors Friday in Marion, 63-49.
"I thought we just came out ready to play," Knoll said. "We got the ball up the court well, played great defense, and got some good transitions baskets. We just took charge of the game right away."
That's something you can't let the Trojans do if you're going to be successful.
If you let Hillsboro settle into its style of game, you better have more than just one weapon in your arsenal to repel the Trojans' firepower.
Marion found that out firsthand with Hillsboro breaking out the track cleats and sprinting to a 23-15 lead after the first quarter.
Of Hillsboro's 23 points, seven came in transition, created by its nagging defense forcing six Warrior turnovers.
The Trojans opened the game red-hot from the floor, hitting four of their first six shots and 50 percent the first quarter.
The Warriors' Dale Vogel almost duplicated Sawyer's performance 13 years earlier, but Vogel got his game-high 22 points muscling his way around inside while Sawyer got his outside.
Take Vogel out of the equation, Marion's goose would have been cooked long before the final buzzer.
Seventeen of his 22 points came in the first half.
All but three of the Warriors' first quarter points came from Vogel except for Travis Hett's buzzer-beating three.
In an attempt to neutralize Vogel inside, Knoll used Derek Hamm and big Wade Weibert.
That worked more so the second half with Vogel being double teamed en route to five points and a sole field goal.
With both teams shooting 50 percent the first quarter, Marion could only manage three field goals the second and Hillsboro, four.
And while the Warriors only had Vogel and Trojan mistakes keeping them in the game, Hillsboro had four-fifths of its starting five finish in double figures, lead by Eric Weinbrenner's deadly perimeter shooting.
Weinbrenner finished with a team-high 14, including 2-of-6 from outside.
Dan Deckert added 13, Kyle Kroeker supplied 11 with a game-high three triples, and Lucas Hamm's double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Deckert had 12 of the 13 in the first half to help the Trojans to a 31-23 lead at recess.
The good looks were harder for the Warriors to get the second half as the Trojans used an 18-9 run from 50 percent shooting to take a commanding 49-32 lead to start the fourth.
Hillsboro limited Marion to 5-for-15 the second half and 42 percent on the night with 47 coming from the floor.
The transition baskets helped the Trojans shoot a scalding 59 percent from the floor and 10-for-12 at the free throw line.
The only knocks against Hillsboro were 5-of-17 from downtown and 15 turnovers.
Marion's best quarter came in the fourth, going against the Trojans reserves. The Warriors only were able to outscore Hillsboro 17-14, after their fate had already been sealed.
"When we went away from going inside we didn't score for a while," said Knoll. "Once we started getting the ball back inside, we started knocking down a lot of shots.
"I was very pleased, we got to play a lot of guys tonight (and got) good effort out of guys. It was an excellent win. Anytime you can come here and win like that, it's a good win."
The Trojans faced a stiff test on the road Tuesday against upstart Halstead before hosting struggling Sterling Friday at around 8 p.m.
