Coach Randall wins 300th as Solon defeats Marion

SOLON - Brad Randall couldn't have hand-picked a better game to get a milestone victory.The Solon boys' basketball coach won for the 300th time at the school last night as his Spartans swamped Marion, 61-37. Quite the impressive season/Wamac Conference opener for the Spartans, who looked very well equipped to make the jump to Class 3A this season.“I feel pretty fortunate, very blessed,” Randall said. “There was a time when I didn't even know if I'd be a (head) coach in 100 games … To be able to last here this long, I just feel blessed.”This win was typical Solon all the way. Quick and athletic players executed a press defense and Randall's vaunted trapping 1-3-1 zone perfectly, producing a whopping 30 Marion turnovers and a ton of points off them. Randall called timeout when it just an 8-5 game late in the first quarter, with his team responding with a run that made it 17-6 after one and 38-17 at halftime.“I thought we were pretty sharp,” said Solon's Nick Day, who finished with a game-high 17 points. “We made a lot of shots early, so that got us some good momentum. That's what we live off our, our defense. Then we fast break them and get layups. That's what I think we did a pretty good job of tonight, I think.”“I was very pleased with our defense and our transition offense,” said Randall, who is 300-91 in his 18th season at Solon. “I thought for the first game, we passed the ball pretty well most of the time. I felt like we were pretty well organized. We were always in the right spots on defense with our press.”Only sixth-man Jake Morris played much during Solon's run to a fourth consecutive state football championship, so “football legs” are not an issue with this club. Morris, by the way, provided a great spark with eight points and six rebounds off the bench.Zach Velez-Westphal added 11 points for the Spartans, who finished second in Class 2A last season. Kasey Semler (10 points) was Marion's lone double-digit scorer.“That's probably the biggest disappointment tonight. We didn't really handle their defense very well,” said Marion Coach Mike Manderscheid. “We didn't handle it the way we needed to, the way we worked on it in practice. If we handled it the way we worked on it, it might have been the same story, but at least we would have given ourselves a chance.”Here is the game boxscore:

AT SOLON

MARION (37): Austin Hardman 0-4 0-0 0, Dylan Cronk 2-2 0-0 4, Tyler Fisher 1-7 0-0 2, Kasey Semler 3-8 2-2 10, Tre Kinney 1-2 0-0 2, Dusty Albaugh 2-5 3-4 9, Isaac Frazier 2-3 0-0 4, Dan Van Gorp 2-4 2-2 6, Cale Cannoy 0-0 0-0 0, Josh Davila 0-1 0-0 0, Jake McDonald 0-0 0-0 0, Jared Huhndorf 0-0 0-0 0, Tyler Hedtke 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 13-36 7-8 37.

SOLON (61): Zach Velez-Westphal 4-11 1-3 11, Nick Day 7-11 2-4 17, Jesse Carson 1-4 2-4 4, Turner Wentzien 3-5 2-4 8, Joe Weeks 2-5 1-2 5, Jake Morris 4-5 0-0 8, Lucas Bruene 0-0 0-0 0, Andrew Villagrana 2-3 0-0 4, Brett Smith 0-1 1-2 1, Nolan Asprey 0-1 0-0 0, James Shelman 0-0 0-0 0, Michael Gillett 0-0 0-0 0, Lucas Tener 1-2 1-2 3, Rory Siddell 0-1 0-0 0, Todd Oberthien 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 24-50 10-21 61.

Halftime - Solon 38, Marion 17.

3-point goals - Marion 4-12 (Fisher 0-2, Semler 2-6, Albaugh 2-3, Davila 0-1), Solon 3-7 (Velez-Westphal 2-3, Day 1-2, Villagrana 0-1, Asprey 0-1).

Rebounds - Marion 28 (Fisher 8), Solon 23 (Morris 6).

Total fouls - Marion 15, Solon 14.

Fouled out – None.

Turnovers – Marion 30, Solon 11.