A standing room only crowd was on hand in Murray to watch the much-anticipated boy’s game between Marshall County and Calloway County. The undefeated Marshals and one loss Lakers both appear atop many statewide polls including the KHSAA RPI rankings that listed the Marshals third in the state and the Lakers at fifth coming into Tuesday’s game.
Focused on the task at hand after trailing 13-9, the Marshals went to work and took the lead on a three pointer by Matthew Langhi and never looked back, taking down the Lakers by the final score of 79-52.
“They were so locked in defensively, every one of them”, Head Coach Sawyer Donohoo said in post-game comments to WCBL’s Jeff Waters. “I thought they fought their tails off and I couldn’t be any prouder of them for how they performed tonight.”
Langhi scored a career high 40 points which included four three-pointers and a 10-of-12 night at the free throw line. Donohoo said Langhi was in “attack mode” making play after play and making the right decisions.
Up 19-13 at the end of the first quarter behind 11 points from Langhi, the sophomore went on to score the first seven points of the second quarter that finished out a 17-0 run by the Marshals and the lead was 26-13. They outscored the Lakers by 10 in the quarter to take a commanding 41-25 lead at halftime.
Langhi finished the first half with 23 points, scoring a multitude of ways.
Kyzer Phillips scored the first basket of the second half to push the Marshals lead out to 18 points. Calloway cut it down to 10 points at 45-35 on free throws from Eli Finley and that would be as close as the Lakers would get the rest of the game.
The Marshals extended their lead to 20 points at 59-39 to close out the third quarter getting eight points from Langhi along with scoring from Phillips, Ryan Stokes, Alex Staples and Kaden Mohler.
They took their largest lead of the night late in the fourth quarter at 77-47 on a bucket from Maxson Mitchell. J.T. Hall free throws finished out the scoring for the Marshals and a three from Jake Ringstaff for the Lakers as the final horn blew on the 79-52 win.
The defensive effort by the Marshals held Calloway’s leading scorers Finley and Butler to a below average night and held the Lakers to their second lowest points total of the season since their 56-50 loss to LaRue County on December 28.
As a team, the Marshals had seven three-pointers. Four from Langhi and one each by Staples, Neyland Jezik and Tommy Robertson. They were 16-of-21 at the free throw line. Calloway County hit five threes from five different players and at the line, went 15-of-24.
They will meet again on February 7 at Marshall County.
Up next for the Marshals is a double-header on Friday against Graves County.
Marshall County 19 41 59 79
Calloway County 13 25 39 52
Marshall County (16-0): Matthew Langhi 40, Alex Staples 9, Kyzer Phillips 8, Tommy Robertson 7, Neyland Jezik 5, Ryan Stokes 4, Kaden Mohler 2, J.T. Hall 2, Maxson Mitchell 2
Calloway County (15-2): Eli Finley 16, Jonah Butler 15, Cole Lockhart 8, Luke Armstrong 4, Peyton Weatherford 3, Jake Ringstaff 3, Trent Jones 2, Matthew Briedwell 1
Marshals vs. Calloway County
