Alliance boys basketball rallies in fourth quarter to turn back Marlington

It was an uphill battle all night long for the Alliance Aviators Tuesday night in Harry Fails Gymnasium.

A poor shooting opening quarter put the Aviators (8-2, 5-0) behind the eight ball early. They could only connect on 2-of-13 shots from the floor in the opening period. The drought continued into the second quarter as they fell behind by as many as 15 points before coach Sean Weatherspoon called a timeout to regroup.

But the Aviators recorded a huge second half to defeat the Marlington 63-54 in an Eastern Buckeye Conference battle.

Marlington (5-6, 2-3 EBC) led 13-9 after one quarter and 29-25 at the intermission before the Aviators rallied.

“It was your typical rivalry game,” said Weatherspoon. “Marlington is well-coached and they came in here and played their tails off.

“They came in here and gave it to us. They won the first half; they played harder than us and we were missing shots. I’m really proud of how the guys responded in the second half.”

Weatherspoon said the Aviators simply went out and played basketball.

“I think they were thinking too much and not playing basketball,” Weatherspoon said. “Our style is to let ‘athletes be athletes’, don’t overthink things, share the ball and play hard defensively. We did that in the second half.”

Alliance is a big, fast, and physical team and Marlington coach Nick Evanich thought Alliance eventually wore down his team.

“They [Alliance] didn’t back down,” Evanich said. “They didn’t get out of sorts when we got up on them. They had some guys hit shots that haven’t hit those shots this year. Those things happen. That is why you play the game. It was a great battle.

“Their size and strength just wore us down. In the first half, we were fresh enough to handle that. But in the second half, they just wore us down.”

The Aviators' 6-foot-7 senior Diego Allen scored 20 points and collected 18 rebounds, many of those on the offensive end. He also had a huge steal where he went the length of the floor and finished with a slam dunk that gave the Aviators a 54-49 advantage with just over three minutes remaining.

However, the Dukes got a game and season-high 22 points from junior Beau Himmelheber.

“He was just exhausted and had to work for everything he got,” Evanich said. “He got us a big lead in the second quarter.”

Marlington still managed to hold a slim lead going into the fourth quarter at 40-39. But Alliance won the final eight minutes, 24-14. The pressure the Aviators applied in the second half was the difference maker.

“We weathered the storm in the first half and thought at halftime we could wear them down with our pressure,” Weatherspoon said. “Our guards are tough, Ramhir Hawkins, J.R. Jackson and Darius Rodriguez were challenged, but hung tough.

"I’m proud of how the rest of the team responded.”

Jackson finished with 11 points. Junior Marquavian McClendon added eight points, while junior Brendan Zurbrugg added six points on a pair of 3-pointers.

For Marlington, junior Jaden Proctor scored 13 points with senior Casey Miller and sophomore Dylan Heatherington each scoring seven and sophomore Sam Yoder five.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Alliance Aviators boys basketball team defeats rival Marlington Dukes