JASPER, Tenn. – What had been a light purple shirt to begin the basketball game was much darker and wetter as he sat near the Marion County bench and watched his Lady Warriors celebrate.
It wasn’t a Gatorade shower that had soaked Marion coach Randy Ellis’ shirt, but rather sweat – and justifiably so after the Lady Warriors needed every bit of effort to hold off a gritty Van Buren County team 50-47 to claim the Region 3-A championship.
“I just need a minute to myself to calm down a little,” Ellis said. “We were rattled for a while, but when we needed to step up we did.”
Marion (25-1) will host Clarkrange (24-10) in Saturday’s sub-state round at 8 p.m. Eastern, while Van Buren (15-17) must travel to Pickett County (29-2), which beat Clarkrange 60-56 Wednesday. It will be the fourth time in program history the Lady Warriors have come within one win of the state tournament, and they will host for the first time since 2011.
Wednesday night’s game was the fourth meeting this season between Marion and Van Buren, with the Lady Warriors winning two regular-season games and last week’s district tournament title game, each by 14 or more points. But this time Van Buren refused to go away.