Marcus girls’ basketball coach Kit Kyle strongly believes this year’s team has what it takes to make it back to playoffs for the second-consecutive year.
 
The Marauders (16-9 overall) sport a 3-1 record in District 6-5A heading into a key match-up against Carrollton Newman Smith (8-12 overall, 0-4 in district) on Friday. Marcus sits in a three-way tie for second place with Flower Mound and Coppell. Newman Smith may be tied for the district cellar with R.L. Turner, but Kyle knows all too well how pesky Smith can be. Game time is 7:30 p.m. at Smith.
 
“We had a lot of trouble against them and even went to triple overtime at their place last year,” said Kyle, whose team won that wild game, 55-52 back on Jan. 30 2007. “What we want to do is play better interior defense against them and more consistent defense overall in district if we are going to make a run at playoffs and eventually get into playoffs. We have ten games left in district to end up being the team that we all know we can be.”
 
The Smith game is significant because it would keep the Marauders on pace with the rest of the league leaders heading into back-to-back games against Hebron (4-0) and Coppell to close out the first half.
 
Marcus comes back to district play having finished with a 2-2 record in the Mansfield Rotary Invitational this past week. The team – which was making its fifth-consecutive appearance in the event -- opened the tournament with a 63-46 win over Arlington Seguin. They dropped a close game to Pflugerville, 68-65, but came right back to defeat Kennedale 61-42.
 
“I like this tournament because it gives us a chance to get a few more games under our belt in the middle of district play, and we can sometimes try some new things that you might not want to roll out for the first time in district play,” Kyle said. “It’s a competitive tournament.”
 
For the tournament, Elizabeth Dean scored 56 points while teammate Jasmine Shaw posted 38. Brittany Ward poured in 18 against Kennedale to finish the tournament with 33.
 
Kyle said she was impressed overall with her team’s performance in the first three games, but said the only down spot was their 47-35 loss to Arlington Bowie in Game 4. In that game, Bowie jumped out to a 23-16 lead by halftime, and despite a late rally by Marcus in the third quarter, was able to outscore the Marauders 20-7 in the fourth quarter to come away with the win. Sabrina McKinney led all scorers with 18.
 
“You could make a case that our girls were tired because it was our fourth game in two days, but it was the same for the other team as well,” Kyle said. “We didn’t defend well at all in that game, didn’t give ourselves second chances at shots and overall it simply wasn’t a pretty game. It was a surprise because we hadn’t played that poor of a game in a long while.”
 
At the same time, Kyle wasn’t worried at all that her team would carry that type of play back into district action on Friday. Of their 25 games, the team has played eight state-ranked teams and has only lost by 10 or more points twice this season.
 
And they’ve shown just how dominant they can be in district. The Marauders are coming off their first playoff appearance in three seasons a year ago, riding a perfect 14-0 district record toward a 25-8 overall record. At one point last year, Marcus had 17 wins in their final 19 regular-season games.
 
“We have the talent to play with anyone,” Kyle said.
 
Marcus           6    10    12    7  --  35
Arl. Bowie   13    10      4  20  --  47
MHS: Raven Short 14, Elizabeth Dean 12, Adriene Easley 4, Jasmine Shaw 2, Hallie Sample 2, Brittany Ward 1.
ABH: Sabrina McKinney 18, Amenemope McKinney 8, Jalieshia Trapp 6, Kosy Mora 6, Alicia Johnson 4, Lauren McKinney 3, Ify Mora 2.