Faith Academy boys basketball beats San Marcos Academy

CAPTION: Faith Academy senior guard Jace Marshall played Austin San Juan Diego like a seasoned veteran in leading the Flames to victory. Photo by Stennis Shotts

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls boys basketball team crushed San Marcos Academy 66-31 Jan. 31 in District 4-3A play of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.

The Flames led 22-3 after the first quarter, 30-10 at the half and 47-16 going into the fourth period.

Before tipoff, the academy’s basketball programs honored their seniors.

“It’s always good to win on senior night,” head coach Zakk Revelle said. “We’re happy to win. Happy to be able to officially say that we’re in the playoffs, we’re going to be in the playoffs no matter what, especially with three tough games coming up, so that was really good. You’re always glad to send your seniors off the right way.”

By the time reserves took over in the final stanza, Faith had the comfortable lead thanks to senior Jase Marshall, who scored eight of the Flames’ 22 first-quarter points and 10 of the Flames’ 17 third-period points.

“I’m just really happy for Jace because he works really hard,” Revelle said. “He’s a very good offensive player. Jace gives up a lot of opportunities to score and to do some things for the sake of what we’re trying to get done accomplished as a group. So really happy for him. We know that he can do that at any time. We want to be able to rely on everybody and Jace does a really good job of keeping everybody involved. So happy to see him have a good night like that.”

Senior center Judah Phillips ended the game with 11 points but he roamed around the arc and attempted more long-range jumpers.

“We threw it down low early and often,” Revelle said. “We have some different sets that we want to look at and that we needed to try out. The more we were able to run those, the better. That was really good.”

He added that those sets also allow perimeter players to get to spots that fans may not have seen before.

“We’re glad to be able to do those because we’re not playing for just the next game,” the coach said. “We have big aspirations. And you have to do things differently and you have to make sure that we’re doing things like being able to score in the halfcourt and being able to run sets whenever we’re tired. So we were glad that we were able to do that and do it successfully.”  

The coach said he was pleased with what he saw in the opening stanza and not as happy with how the second quarter played out. So during halftime, he and his assistants made it clear they wanted to see the Flames go back to how they were playing to start the game.

“They really responded well to taking hard coaching and understanding that if you want what you say you want, you have to do certain things all the time,” he said. “And so they really responded well to that, and so I was happy with the way that they came out specifically (Marshall) because he asked after everybody left, what do you need me to do? And the exact things we told him to do, he did.”

Faith will welcome San Antonio Lutheran Tuesday, Feb. 3, with the junior varsity playing at 5 p.m., the girls varsity at 6:30, and the boys varsity at 7:30 p.m.

CAPTION: Faith Academy senior center Judah Phillips moves to different spots on the floor to show his range on the offensive end. Photo by Stennis Shotts