Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall forward Jayden Meister jumps up as he saves a ball from going out of bounds during the first half of a prep boys basketball game against Worthington in Marshall on Friday night.

MARSHALL — Starting the game off on the right foot is always helpful to securing a victory. The Marshall boys basketball team took things to the next level in its game against Worthington on Friday night, scoring 28 unanswered points to start the game before coasting to a 73-34 win.

The game came on the heels of an 85-40 loss to No. 5 Mankato East on Thursday night. Still, Marshall wasted no time hanging its head and came out strong.

“We just came out with a lot of energy. It’s everything that we work on in practice, we just came out and executed it,” Marshall forward Jayden Meister said. “It’s about sticking together as a team. If someone’s feeling down, you’ve got to have another man come pick him up and we did that great as a team, everyone’s there for each other.”

The Marshall defense held the Trojans scoreless for exactly 10 minutes to start the game. It wasn’t until after Alex Franson hit back-to-back layups and Cooper Mensink hit Braxton Koster with a behind-the-back pass for a transition layup to make the score 28-0 that Worthington finally ended the drought. 

Morke Welbaka got the Trojans on the board by knocking down a pair of free throws after drawing a shooting foul. Worthington went to the line again on the next possession but missed each of its two attempts.

While Marshall pulled ahead early, their scoring load remained well-distributed. Franson and Mensink led the team with 14 and 12 points respectively, Franson on 7 of 11 shooting from the field and Mensink on 5 of 9 with a pair of 3-pointers. Mason Graven and Koster also tallied 8 and 7 points respectively while nine additional Tigers added at least one field goal on the day.

“We have a lot of kids that come into practice and work hard each day, and it’s great to have nights like tonight when they have an opportunity,” Marshall head coach Travis Carroll said. “I thought all the kids that had an opportunity to play tonight did a good job of executing on offense and the defensive end.”

Points in transition were key for Marshall early. Mensink got a steal to set up his own layup and then Jayden Meister tipped a pass, made a leaping save along the sideline and Graven hit another layup in off the steal. A JR Vierstraete turnaround jumper in the post gave Marshall three consecutive baskets off turnovers in the span of a minute.

As a team, Marshall finished with 15 steals on the night to Worthignton’s eight. Mensink and Franson each recorded three while Vierstraete, Graven and Koster contributed another two each. Carroll cited his teams’ ability to defend personnel in the half-court and its ability to apply pressure on the full-court press as key factors in Marshall’s ability to get Worthington on its heels early.

Worthington called its first timeout trailing 12-0 four minutes into the game after Koster hit a 3 and then knocked the ball loose from a Trojan’s handle over to Meister, who passed it up to Mensink on the wing for another 3. The break did nothing to cool down the Tigers, however, as Franson drained consecutive layups out of the break to increase Marshall’s lead to 16 points.

Graven finished a layup through heavy contact, earning 2 points for his team despite missing the and-1 free throw, and then hit another 3-pointer to make the score 20-0 after Davion Xayarath and Koster forced a Worthington turnover after pressing a ballhandler along the baseline.

Marshall outrebounded Worthington 24-19 in the game, including 10-1 on the offensive glass. Xayarath led the way with four rebounds, two on each end of the floor, while Meister and Meier each recorded another three. 

Worthington’s first points sparked a 10-3 run for the Trojans but Marshall never led the visitors get within 20 points, keeping the lead well intact through the end of the first half. The Tigers led 43-13 at the break behind 12 points from Franson and 10 from Mensink. 

Meister sent a message that the Tigers weren’t letting up by draining a 3 on the first possession of the second half. While the Trojans continued to play hard, they never cut significantly into the Marshall lead. The Tigers were able to increase their lead past the 35-point threshold to trigger the running clock and coasted to victory behind the reserves from there. 

Marshall improves to 5-1 with the win and will next host Hutchinson (2-3) on Thursday at 6 p.m. Each of the Tigers’ four wins have come by double digits so far and they’ll look to carry that momentum into next week.

“We saw a lot of things [against Mankato East] that we need to work on, so it’s going to be important for us to get into practice next week and work on those things because there’s lots of room for improvement on our team,” Carroll said. “Tonight they did a good job of coming out, working hard, and being ready to go… We’re off to a decent start, but it’s definitely one day at a time because we have a lot of work in front of us and we’re excited for that opportunity.”