It’s been four years since the last Marshall County boy’s district title, going back to the 2013-2014 season when the Marshals defeated Calloway County. Thursday’s 60-50 win in overtime over Murray High marks the 25th District Championship for the program since 1978.
Head Coach Terry Birdsong, in his first year over the boy’s program, has guided the Marshals back to the district title and they will await Saturday’s Region I Tournament draw to see who they will meet in the first round at the CFSB Center next week.
In their two regular season wins over Murray, the Marshals won by 30 points and 18 points and looked to be on their way to another double-digit victory up by 12 points at halftime and holding on to a 10 point lead heading into the fourth quarter, hitting their largest lead of the game twice in the third quarter by 14 points.
Murray out-scored the Marshals 20-10 in the fourth quarter, 12 of the 20 points coming off of four 3-pointers. With 2:00 to go, Murray cut the Marshals lead to seven points. Following two free throws by Austin Riley, a three by Hunter Utley cut the Marshals lead to six and a couple of free throws from Tyler Stokes held the lead to six points with 1:10 remaining.
With 57 seconds left on the clock, a scramble for the ball was picked up by the Marshals, prompting a quick time-out call by Birdsong with a 44-38 lead. A 3-pointer by Noah Merriss cut the lead to three with 33 seconds left. Reed was fouled and hit both at the line with just one second of elapsed time. Utley hit his second three of the fourth quarter to cut the score to 46-44 with 9.9 left on the clock. That was followed by a steal by Colton Wilson under the Murray goal, who quickly laid it up and in to tie the game with 5.3 seconds to go. A long three attempt by Jay Nimmo missed to send the game into overtime.
After a 48-48 tie, the Marshals went on a 7-0 run highlighted by a basket by Stokes who drew the foul to put the Marshals up 55-48 with 1:42 remaining in overtime. RaVichael Strickland scored and drew the foul but missed from the line, the final two points of the game for the Tigers as the Marshals went on to score the next five points by Reed, Riley and Stokes for the 10 point win.
Reed led the Marshals with 22 points and seven rebounds and Stokes added 16 points and eight rebounds. Utley and Caleb Rogers led Murray, each with 12 points.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final/OT | |
| Marshall | 13 | 24 | 36 | 46 | 60 |
| Murray | 4 | 12 | 26 | 46 | 50 |
SCORING
Marshall: Reed 22, Stokes 16, Riley 8, Nimmo 6, Powell 5, Smith 2, French 1
Murray: Utley 12, Rogers 12, Strickland 10, N Merriss 9, McCallister 3, Wilson 2, Waldrop 2
Marshall: FG 21/43, 3 PT 3/12, FT 15/24, Reb 30, Fouls 14, Ast 8, TO 8
Murray: FG 20/47, 3 PT 9/21, FT 1/5, Reb 29, Fouls 21, Ast 12. TO 12
Aaron Reed (Marshall), Caleb Rogers (Murray), Tyler Stokes (Marshall), Aaron Dawson (Calloway) and Austin Riley (Marshall).
