Warriors jump ahead early
Sports reporter
Seniors Chase Carlson, Justin Heidebrecht, and Calvin Jeffrey know this is the year they are supposed to lead the Marion High School boys' basketball team.
Friday night they proved it.
The trio combined for 41 points, 13 rebounds, and seven assists as MHS defeated Chase County on the road, 71-42.
The Warriors begin the season with a 1-0 record.
The seniors had plenty of help, including 10 points and five rebounds from sophomore Eric Vogel, but in order for the team to be successful they must produce.
Heidebrecht, who scored 16 points and grabbed six rebounds, said he feels more comfortable this year on the court.
He attributed some of that to a summer trip to Missouri where the team played 10 games in a three-day tournament.
"We stayed in the dorms and really bonded," Heidebrecht said. "It helped a lot."
The team played as one early on, jumping out to a 20-8 first-quarter lead.
A slow start in the second quarter saw Chase County close to 20-13, but a Jeffrey three-pointer with five minutes, 36 seconds left until halftime put the Warriors in an offensive rhythm.
"I thought we were pretty consistent from an offensive standpoint," head coach Rex Ostmeyer said.
In the first three quarters MHS scored 20, 17, and 21, but dropped down to 13 in the fourth quarter once the game was out of reach.
However, Ostmeyer was unhappy with one aspect of his team's play.
While the Warriors shot just less than 50 percent from the field, they only made only 8-22 free throws.
"We'll take 48.3 percent from the field every game, but not so much 36 percent from the free-throw line," Ostmeyer said. "That's kind of a sour thing. We score 71 points and we should have scored 80. But that's the way it goes sometimes in the first game."
Ostmeyer did think the positives outweighed the one negative, including Jeffrey's career-high 19 points, Carlson making all three of his shot attempts, and the distribution of points which saw nine different players score.
"For the most part, we'll take it and move on," Ostmeyer said.
The move would be to Inman where the Warriors are in the midst of the annual, three-game Inman tournament.
MHS played Tuesday against Garden Plain in the first round, and will hit the court at 8:30 p.m. Thursday against Inman, and at 5:30 p.m. Friday against St. John.
To be successful in the tournament, the seniors must keep playing at the level they showed at Chase County.
"They should be confident," Ostmeyer said. "They've got experience
