MORAN — A young, paper-thin Marmaton Valley High squad knew it was in for a tough night with Uniontown coming to town.
The Wildcats’ foremost struggle this season — ball handling — corresponds with Uniontown’s biggest strength, a suffocating full-court pressure defense.
Add the loss of Wildcat sophomore guard Dylan Drake to a knee injury, depriving the Wildcats of one of their key ball-handlers, and you have the ingredients for a 67-32 defeat.
But Marmaton Valley head coach Gavin Cole notes his team has made strides despite suiting up only seven players against a deep, talented opponent.
“We knew we were going to have that opportunity to work against a very good team tonight and work on one of our weaknesses,” Cole said.
The Eagles blitzed Marmaton Valley out of the gates, leading 17-0 before the Wildcats’ Robert Cook got loose inside for a layup. Quincy Adams drilled a 3-pointer about a minute later before Uniontown ended the period on a 10-0 run.
“ Early on, obviously, we struggled and when we get that type of pressure, not only do we struggle with taking care of the ball and limiting transition layups, we also struggle to get into the motion of our offense.
Despite the 29-5 deficit, Marmaton Valley attacked the second quarter with vigor. All five Wildcat starters scored as MV put up 14 points in the period.
“Once we get into a fluid offense, we’re OK,” Cole said. “Overall, that second quarter was one of our better offensive quarters we’ve played this year. We were getting into our offense, we were cutting hard.”
Adams continued to attack the Uniontown defense in the second half, scoring 11 of Marmaton Valley’s 13 points after intermission, including going 7 of 8 from the line. Quincy wound up with 21 for the game.
“Quincy plays hard,” Cole said. “He’s got some ball-handling ability and some shooting ability. Offensively, he makes some very good moves, but my favorite part of his game is he plays hard.”
Even better, Marmaton Valley was more effective at limiting Uniontown’s transition game in the second half.
“I mention the same three things before every game,” Cole said. “No. 1, get defensive rebounds. No. 2, be strong and take care of the ball. No. 3, limit transition buckets. A lot of things go hand in hand. It’s a constant thing we’ve got to continue to work on.”
Cook wound up with five points for Marmaton Valley.
Uniontown was paced by a balanced scoring attack with five players scoring at least eight points, led by Cade Goodridge with 12.
Drake is done for the season because of his knee injury, Cole said.
