The Martin girls’ varsity basketball team lifted its overall season record to 8-1 Friday night with a convincing 59-17 triumph over Delton in the two schools’ annual Marker Matchup contest.

The Lady Clippers’ only loss this season thus far has been to a Division 2 opponent, Sturgis, in the Mendon holiday tournament.

The Martin boys, meanwhile, fell to 0-10 on the season overall with a 58-38 loss at the hands of the Panthers.

The Martin girls wasted no time in taking control of the game, jumping out to a 26-7 lead at the end of the first quarter and 44-9 at the half,

“Tonight was such a fun game for us, as it was such a great team effort from the jump,” coach Ben Schipper said. “We haven’t been satisfied with the way we’ve been playing since Christmas break and we’ve been doing a lot of self reflecting to see how we can address some key areas. Tonight the areas of focus were to be the aggressor, drastically reduce the offensive rebounds we’ve been giving up, and have better ball movement.

“The girls did an amazing job rising to the occasion on all three. This led to our best half of basketball exploding to a 44-9 halftime lead.”

Macy Thorne scored all 10 of her points in the second quarter, relentlessly getting to the basket. Makala Goddard scored 8 of her game-high 14 points in the first quarter. The Clippers had seven girls score in the first half and eight in the game. Torryn Harris added eight points.

They held Delton to six offensive rebounds and ball movement against the zone was impressive.

“This was the most we’ve gotten our posts involved all season and that was really great to see having Marybeth Ritchie get a season high of 11 points tonight and the same for Mari Elkins with 4,” Schipper said. “Avery Jager played an all-around great game with the most aggressiveness we’ve seen out of her this season, especially on defense, and scored six. 

“We’ve learned some lessons over the past couple of games of how to play with the lead and tonight we put it together. It was a big emphasis for us to get the lead and then expand it rather than flat line and we did a great job of that.

“Our aggressiveness never wavered and we were so proud of the way we were locked in for the full 32 minutes. The energy was great and the execution was finally there offensively. Plus we get to keep the traveling trophy for another year in our annual Marker Matchup game.”