Both the East Marion Eagles and Lady Eagles are managing to hang around .500 this season despite fielding extremely young rosters.
The Eagles (5-6) were busy over the past week and dropped two of their three contests. They lost at Picayune 66-34 Dec. 14 and at home 53-42 to Stone Friday before bouncing back for a 47-22 road win over Lumberton Monday.
Head coach Calvin Brown called the Eagles’ performance through 11 games “sporadic” as the young roster experiences growing pains.
“Everybody is stepping into new roles and filling shoes, and we’re just defining roles and trying to define all the pieces before we can put them all together. But I like the progress. We’re getting better each night,” he said. “It’s a blank page. I don’t see a ceiling, but I also don’t see a timetable. We could end up in Jackson or run out of time, one or the other. I just hope it’s a continuous, forward progression.”
Brown said sophomore Donny Anderson, who is East Marion’s leading scorer, is the team’s most dynamic matchup who can get a bucket in a variety of ways.
Meanwhile, the Lady Eagles (7-6) are winners of three straight and have earned those wins in dominant fashion, but Brown said that had as much to do with the opponents as East Marion’s play. The Lady Eagles beat Picayune 42-7, Stone 48-18 and Lumberton 48-32.
“We played a few teams that we were just better than, but we’ve grown though,” he said. “Our freshmen are starting to learn what high school basketball really looks like. Destiny is starting to play her way into game shape. Similar to the boys, we’re just gradually trying to find our identity. We know it starts with defense — we have to really grind it out on defense to give ourselves a chance to get out in transition. When it’s five-on-five (in the) half court, we’re at worst. When we can outrun you and have numbers in transition, we’re at our best. That’s conclusive.”
East Marion began its annual Holiday Classic Tournament Tuesday, which Brown said brings out the best basketball environment of the year apart from postseason games. Both the Lady Eagles and Eagles played Columbia Tuesday, but results were unavailable at press time. Depending on Tuesday’s results, the East Marion squads will play either Harrison Central or Jeff Davis County Thursday.
Following the East Marion tournament, both the Eagles and Lady Eagles will play in the McComb Holiday Tournament, which begins Monday. They will both play South Pike Monday and Wilkinson County
Tuesday.
UPDATE: Both East Marion teams beat Columbia Tuesday and will play Harrison Central Thursday.
