Richland rolls into semifinals with big win over Marquand

Jerry Jarrell photo Richland senior Drew Thornton makes a strong move to the basket in the Rebels' 71-25 win over Marquand-Zion in the first round of the Class 1, District 3 Tournament at Delta Monday.

DELTA -- The crowd was still filtering in when the opening tip-off between Richland and Marquand-Zion signaled the beginning of the MSHSAA Class 1, District 3 Tournament at Delta High School Monday afternoon. By the time everyone had settled in, the Rebels had already punched their ticket for a spot in the semifinals.

Richland scored the games first eight points, forced the Tigers into seven turnovers in their first nine possessions and never looked back in a 71-25 win.

The ninth-ranked team in Class 1 completely dominated Marquand building a 12-2 first quarter lead at the 3:51 mark on a 15-foot jumper by Mikey Latham, increasing the advantage to 23-4 on a 3-pointer by Ryan Kleffer before finishing off the period on top 25-6.

Richland pushed the advantage to 39-11 at half-time, then opened the third quarter much like the first scoring the first 13 points and forcing five Marquand turnovers in Tigers' first six possessions. A 58-18 lead heading into the final eight minutes put the mercy clock in motion.

"Games like this sort of help you save your legs and we're only eight deep right now, so it meant a lot to save our legs and hopefully help us beat one of these teams tomorrow night," Richland coach John Walker said after the game while Leopold and Zalma were on the court warming up for the second game of the evening.

Michael "Mikey" Latham, Drew Thornton and McKinley "Mac" Thornton combined for 50 of the Rebels' 71 points, as coach Walker was able to shuffle all eight players in and out of the game from early on in the first quarter. Latham led the three seniors with 20 points, followed by Drew Thornton with 16 and Mac Thornton with 14. Ryan Kleffer was also in double digits for the Rebels with 11 points.

"They want to keep going," Walker said when asked about his seniors who have helped the first year coach and the team post a 21-6 record. "If we can get by the next game we'd like to take our shot at Scott County just to see what we can do. You can never tell, anything can happen in one of these games."

Before the Rebels can earn a shot at the district's No. 1 seed, Scott County Central, which is also the No. 1 ranked team in the state in Class 1, Richland will have to contend with a talented Leopold club. The No. 3 seeded Wildcats were state-ranked team for much of the season and advance Monday with a 75-49 win over Zalma.

Delta earned the first shot at Scott County with a 64-55 win over No. 5 Bell City Monday. That game will tip-off at 6 p. m. tonight with the Richland-Leopold game to follow. The boys championship game will be played Thursday at 7:30.

The second semifinal game will mark the second meeting of the season for the Rebels and Wildcats.

"We played them earlier in the year and we beat them by five at our house," Walker said of a possible rematch with the Wildcats. " We had a 17-point lead at one time (in that game) and let it get away. They are a real solid club. They take care of the ball well and they use their size. They are a very big team. We'll have to come out and apply a lot of pressure and try to run against them."