Marist survives to play another day

As Chuck Martin has said several times this season, an ugly win beats a pretty loss any day of the week.

In the match-up of No. 7 Iona and No. 10 Marist, both teams sputtered offensively and yielded late runs before the Red Foxes eventually closed out the Gaels, 43-40.

In a game where a short spurt looked like it could win the game, Marist gained separation with an 8-0 run to take a 38-30 lead with 7:30 left in regulation.

Iona clawed back, however, and responded with a 7-0 run of its own. Marist senior Ryan Schneider put the game out of reach though when he sank a straightaway three-pointer with 3:22 left. Marist led 41-37 and would hang on in the final minutes.

Schneider and point guard David Devezin each scored a game-high 14 points.

Although Marist finished last in the conference, the tough losses have given Chuck Martin’s team a wealth of experience to draw on for this tournament.

“The one thing we’ve learned through all our games this season is, we’ve learned how to have composure in the last 10 minutes,” Martin said. “We’ve had leads and gotten down and we just don’t know how to get back, but it’s paid off for us, all of these games.”

Although the team finished 10^th, Martin and Schneider both know that the team played better than the record indicates and this conference win validates a lot of the effort during the season.

“I think for the team and the people who followed us all season, [they] understood we finished 10^th but we played much better than a 10^th place team,” Martin said. “I think the coaches in this league, I don’t want to speak for them, but I think they would say, ‘Hey, we’re pretty good for a 10^th place team.’”

“I think we’ve worked really hard even though our record doesn’t show it and to go out and get a win today, it really shows that we haven’t given up and we’re going to keep playing hard,” Schneider said.

Marist’s largest lead came at 38-30 in the second half. Both teams exchanged leads multiples times and were tied, 21-21, at the half. Marist held Iona to 31.9 percent shooting from the field.

Marist will meet up with the No. 2 Niagara Purple Eagles tonight at 7:30 p.m. Like with Iona, both teams split the season series. Marist won, 86-68, in Poughkeepsie on Jan. 11 and fell, 80-72, six days ago in Buffalo.

Marist knows it can beat Niagara and the team now has a win to build upon.

“I think internally they’ve got the confidence of knowing that we did beat them and that we did play well last Sunday although we lost by eight, they’re a really talented team,” Martin said. “We respect them, we know they’re talented, we know they can put numbers up so it’s going to be a challenging game for us but we’re excited.”

Schneider feels he and his teammates have that confidence going into the game tonight.

“I think we have all the confidence in the world, especially coming off a hard fought, really tough win tonight,” Schneider said. “I think we’re really excited about the fact that we match up really well with Niagara and we’re excited about tomorrow.”