Boys Basketball | Salem stuns Marlington in Eastern Buckeye Conference game
SALEM — Brock Young's jumper gave Salem its first lead of the game with 28.1 seconds remaining, and the Quakers went on to upset visiting Marlington 53-51 at Cabas Gymnasium on Tuesday night.
The Dukes, who visit Alliance on Friday night, are 12-3 overall and 6-2 in Eastern Buckeye Conference play, tied with West Branch for second place. The Aviators are 7-1.
"Tremendous effort by Salem in the second half," said Marlington coach Nick Evanich. "We held them to 13 points in the first half and they came out and battled in the second half and got the momentum. We kind of let our guard down and they came at it and they scored 40 points in the second half and earned it. They earned the win."
Drew Weir led the Quakers (4-11, 3-6) with 17 points, while Ross Davidson and Camden Sampson came off of the bench to score 13 and 10 points respectively.
Tommy Skelding led the Dukes with 13 points and Connor Evanich added 12. Marlington led 12-2 after one quarter and 26-13 at halftime.
"Our attitude at halftime was more of frustration," said Salem coach Jeff Andres. "We know that we are a capable team. We have had ups and downs this season that we have had to deal with that have made us a better team, we are still getting there and our best basketball is ahead of us.
"We played pretty good defense in the first half, holding them to 26 points. We just had to get it together offensively. We came out in the second half with a lot of energy and things fell into place offensively."
Marlington led 32-19 midway through the third quarter, but Davidson scored the last seven Quaker points of the period as Salem closed to 38-34 with eight minutes remaining.
Rohm and Davidson scored the first four points of the fourth quarter, capping a 19-4 run to tie the score at 38-38 with 6:57 remaining.
Ben Yoder's basket with 6:21 remaining stopped the Salem run and a three-point play by Skelding pushed the Dukes' lead to 43-38.
Salem rallied again to tie the score at 46 on an alley-oop dunk by Weir from Davidson with 2:44 remaining.
Evanich gave the Dukes a 49-46 lead by burying a 3-pointer from the right corner. Weir answered with a 3 for Salem to tie the score with 1:13 remaining.
"The 3 by Drew was huge after Evanich gave them the lead," said Andres.
Evancih gave Marlington a one-point lead after splitting a pair of free throws, then Young's jumper on the Quakers' next possession that gave them their first lead of the night.
The Dukes turned the ball over on their next possession on a steal by Weir and Davidson who was fouled. He converted the 1-and-1 to give Salem a three-point lead with 9.2 seconds to play.
"We did a horrible job of executing our offense, we never got into any kind of rhythm and did not play well defensively either," said Evanich.
Andres was pleased with the play of his bench, which combined for 23 points.
"This was a big win for us," he said. "It was a good win against a quality opponent. Marlington is a very good basketball team.
"We really got after it defensively. We tried to take Evanich out of the equation and make other people score. Also, we did a pretty good job of rebounding. Our starting five is very fluid because we have used so many different combinations but everybody has embraced their roles."
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Salem Quakers upset Marlington Dukes in EBC boys basketball
