Tuesday night the Ovid-Elsie Lady Marauders welcomed the #9-ranked team in Division 2, the Goodrich Martians, to town for a non-conference battle that proved to be a great high school basketball game.  Goodrich would eventually come away with a 52-43 win and improve to 18-1 on the season while Ovid-Elsie dropped to 16-4.

"This was another dogfight tonight and another game that we needed to help us get ready for tournament play," said Head Coach Ryan Cunningham.  "Goodrich has one of the best programs in the State in the division above us and we knew that it was going to be a challenge.  I'm super proud of our effort tonight even though we came up short.  Again, we scheduled these games for a reason - our non-conference opponents have over 110 combined wins this year."

After a slow start in the first quarter which saw Goodrich take a 12-6 lead, Ovid-Elsie would turn things up in the second but still trailed after a 13-14 effort, 26-19 at the half.

"We just felt that we missed some opportunities and if we could clean a few things up, we could make a run back at them," noted Cunningham.

The third quarter was a draw at 13-13 and with the Marauders down in the 4th, Ovid-Elsie would have to foul to stop the clock.  Goodrich converted on 6 of their 8 free throws in the 4th to win the quarter 13-11.

Cunningham added, "It was a pretty physical game, but they shot more free throws in the 4th quarter than we did in the entire game.  You could sense the frustration in our kids when things seemed one-sided.  But we cut it to 5 with about two and a half minutes to go and were right there.  We just ran out of time."

Goodrich would make good on 8 of 11 free throws on the night while Ovid-Elsie would hit just 4 of 7 with two of those free throws coming in the closing seconds.

Ava Bates had a team-high 17 points to go along with 7 rebounds while Evalyn Cole added 12 points, 5 assists, and 7 steals.  Braeden Tokar chipped in with 7 points while Rylee Lewis added 3, Kiah Longoria (3 assists), and Ellyanna Carman had 2 points each.

The Lady Marauders were able to collect 10 steals on 20 Martian turnovers and handed out 12 assists on 18 made baskets.  Goodrich held a commanding 25-16 advantage in rebounding.  Ovid-Elsie connected on 3 of 5 attempts from behind the arc and shot 44% on the night but Goodrich connected on 6 of their 18 attempts from behind the arc and finished shooting at a 45% clip.

Next up for the Lady Marauders will be Chesaning on Friday night.  If Ovid-Elsie defeats either Chesaning Friday night or LakeVille the following Friday night at home, they will earn the conference championship outright.  Game time for both contests will be 5:30 p.m.