Photo by Jake Przytarski Marshall’s Bryce Lance surveys the floor during their game against Sioux Falls Roosevelt on Tuesday. The Tigers defeated the Rough Riders 73-54.

MARSHALL - To say that the month of February has been kind to the Marshall boys basketball team would be a colossal understatement.

In seven games played this month, the Tigers have won them all by double-digits and entered Tuesday’s matchup with the fifth-ranked team in South Dakota, Sioux Falls Roosevelt, looking for their 10th straight win overall.

Through a hard-fought effort on defense and balanced scoring on offense, the Tigers got the job done with a 73-54 win over the Rough Riders, moving the club to an overall record of 18-5 for the season.

Reflecting on the impressive stretch for his team, Marshall coach Travis Carroll identified multiple factors to their successful run.

“I think our kids are working really well together on the offensive and defensive end of the floor,” said Carroll. “The kids have to be focused for each of those games, and our kids have done a good job of coming in focused ready to play. All of our kids have been giving great effort in our practices and in our games, and defensively communication is a big thing for us. If we’re communicating at a high level on defense that’s gonna make it difficult for other teams to score.”

When the game got underway, the Tigers struck first and rode the early momentum to a 16-7 lead in the opening minutes of play. Senior Camryn Allex found his scoring touch out of the gate to get his team on the board first, before leading scorers Bryce Lance and Noah Puetz followed suit with offensive contributions of their own.

Answering back with a 13-3 run, the Rough Riders climbed back into the game thanks in large part to the work of leading scorer Thoralingo Gilo, who caught fire in the first half to push his team to a 20-19 advantage.

Clamping down on defense in the final minutes, the Tigers battled back to take the lead at 21-20 before going on a 12-6 run – giving them a 33-26 advantage heading into halftime.

In the first half and throughout the game, Carroll came away impressed with his team’s ability to contest shots and limit open looks.

“Our guys did a very good job defensively of communicating and making them take contested shots, because they are a very good scoring team and you can’t give a team like that open looks,” said Carroll. “I thought we did a good job of limiting the number of open looks that they had in the game.”

Carrying on the trend of strong starts to second halves, the Tigers opened up the final 20 with seven unanswered points to take a 40-26 lead–their largest up to that point. Unfortunately, that would remain their largest lead until late, as the Rough Riders continued to cut the deficit to under double-digits and remained in the hunt for a comeback all the way into the final five minutes of play.

Remaining disciplined with the basketball and eliminating second-chance points with strong rebounding, the Tigers – who held a 58-50 lead at midway through the half – closed out the game with a 15-4 run to win 73-54.

Aware of the Rough Rider’s ability to score in rapid succession, Carroll tipped his cap to his club for weathering the storm and not letting the Roosevelt get to within a possession in their comeback attempt.

“It was good to see us handle their comeback,” said Carroll. “A very good basketball team like Sioux Falls Roosevelt going to make a run at you and they did a very good job of making a run at us. We did some things that are correctable in those situations, but our kids did a good job of not letting those things pile up and turn into more correctable errors. It seemed like (the lead) would go to under 10 and then back to above 10. It was good that it never got to that three or four where they got within a possession.”

Next up for the red-hot Tigers is a Conference Championship matchup on Friday with a team that is in the midst of a dominant streak of their own, the top-ranked Waseca Bluejays.

Having played them once before, Carroll is focused on winning the rebounding battle in addition to taking care of the basketball.

“I think the rebounding and taking care of the basketball are going to be two very big factors,” said Carroll. “Making them take contested shots is going to be very important. They do a great job of getting in transition and scoring in transition and we need to limit those types of things.”

Carroll is hoping to see a packed house when the tip-off begins at 7:30 p.m.

“We encourage the community to come out to the game,” said Carroll. “Waseca has a great basketball team, and they’re undefeated. You don’t have too many teams like that come through during a season so they’re a great basketball team. We’re excited for the test and we’re very proud of our kids to earn their way to get to that game.”

Roosevelt 26 28 — 54

Marshall 33 40 — 73

MARSHALL: Allex 4-7 0-2 9, Baker 1-4 2-2 4, Black 1-3 1-2 3, Hmielewski 2-6 3-4 8, Lance 5-10 7-9 17, Paulsen 4-4 1-3 10, Puetz 4-10 8-9 16, Steinbach 1-3 4-4 6.

REBOUNDS: Roosevelt 27; Marshall 30 (Puetz 8). ASSISTS: Roosevelt 9; Marshall 11 (Hmielewski 3, Lance 3). STEALS: Roosevelt 4; Marshall 11 (Paulsen 3). BLOCKS: Roosevelt 0; Marshall 1 (Steinbach).