Coming off a three overtime thriller on Friday night, the Blue Jays (7-5) started slowly and fell into a deep hole early on. By the end of the first quarter, Bolivar (10-4) was ahead by 17 points and never looked back.
Liberators head coach Robby Hoegh couldn’t have been happier with the way his team started the game and the level they played throughout it.
“We were really unselfish with our play,” Hough said. “We had just gotten off of playing Parkview, Branson, and Republic. We played all those teams tough, but we felt like we were not really the aggressor. Tonight I feel like we were.”
In the second quarter, 6’7” senior Evan Roberts started to take over offensively for the Liberators, scoring nearly half of his teams’ points in the quarter. It was his presence on the defensive end, however, that made his coach so proud.
“Evan Roberts is such a great defender,” said Hoegh. “He shows his body so well, and he controls penetration. A lot of times there’s a hole there, but they see Evan and they stop. He has done that for us many times this year.”
With junior Blayne Armstrong and senior Kerrick Wright each scoring 26 points in their previous game, the Liberators knew they had a difficult task on hand and needed to play well all four quarters regardless of the score.
“We had to contain Kerrick (Wright), who is a tremendous point guard,” said Hoegh. “They run a lot of ball picks for him, and he gets into the paint really, really well. Of course, (Blayne) Armstrong is just an absolute load. Tim Lovell and Evan Archer did a good job on him, and Coday (Garrison) did a good job on Kerrick. If you cheat too far, you’ve got (Bradey) Welsh and (Brett) Diehl. They can just absolutely knock it down. They have a good team.”
By the fourth quarter, Marshfield picked up their play, kept fighting and cut the lead to 15 but never could get closer.
“We just got some momentum and once you get that momentum going, good things happen,” Hoegh said. “We haven’t had a game like that this year where we’ve kind of started to click and that was sorely needed.”
Next up, Marshfield travels to Republic on Jan. 11. The Liberators also play Jan. 11 when they take on conference foe Hollister.
Bolivar 24-21-13-10---68
Marshfield 7-14-13-19---53
Bolivar
Evan Roberts 26, Chance Rash 21, Devin Archer 6, Coday Garrison 5, Bryce Krueger 5, Drew Legan 3, Tim Lovell 2
Marshfield
Blayne Armstrong 22, Brett Diehl 9, Bradey Welsh 8, Kerrick Wright 6, Lukas Clift 3, Logan McAnarney 2, Mathew Clancy 2, Lawfton Summers 1
Marshfield 7-14-13-19---53
Bolivar
Evan Roberts 26, Chance Rash 21, Devin Archer 6, Coday Garrison 5, Bryce Krueger 5, Drew Legan 3, Tim Lovell 2
Marshfield
Blayne Armstrong 22, Brett Diehl 9, Bradey Welsh 8, Kerrick Wright 6, Lukas Clift 3, Logan McAnarney 2, Mathew Clancy 2, Lawfton Summers 1
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