New Standard of Success

Mason Lydic leaned forward in his court-side chair, staring at the floor inside the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. With his teammates watching the final 23.4 seconds quickly run off the clock, the foot injury he had been nursing all season was throbbing in pain.

Just 30 feet to his left, Randolph-Macon’s bench was celebrating an 81-63 victory in the semifinals of the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Before the final seconds ticked off the clock, Coach Jon VanderWal found each of his five seniors and gave each one a hug.

The Pioneers’ magical season came to a premature end and the quest for the program’s first national championship would have to wait.

“Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I realize there is not much more we could have done,” says Lydic, who had surgery on his left foot after the season. “We could have played better, but we also realize that Randolph-Macon had a great team. Maybe we didn’t make the championship game, but we believe we are that second-best team in the country. I’m not embarrassed to tell anyone I played on the second-ranked team in all of Division III.”

The voters in the D3hoops.com final poll agreed, and Marietta finished second — the highest ranking at the end of the season in program history. Before the Pioneers could appreciate the program’s most successful season, the players, coaches, parents and fans had to come to terms with coming up short of the ultimate goal.

“It was a tough moment,” VanderWal says. “We didn’t play as well as we would have liked, but I know the hard work and dedication it took for us to get to this point. We were playing for every player who has ever put on that Marietta jersey. We were playing for our amazing fans who are the best in all of Division III. We were playing for our families who have supported us in so many ways. We may have come up short, but I know we represented Marietta College with class.”

It was Marietta’s first trip to the Final Four and the Pioneers entered the last weekend of the season riding a 27-game winning streak. MC’s last loss came on November 20^th against the same Randolph-Macon team, 82-74.

Making the Final Four and competing for a national championship was the clear expectation when the season started. The Pioneers welcomed back five seniors, including Tim Kreeger and Jason Ellis, who were playing a fifth season granted to each of them because of the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. The other seniors were Lukas Isaly, Ryan Reidy and Lydic. Add into the mix junior post players Sahmi Willoughby and Brennen Crawford to go with sophomore guard Jac Alexander, post Addy Black and wing Cooper Parrott and it was clear the 2021-22 season was going to be special.

Ellis, a first team All-American and the Ohio Athletic Conference Player of the Year this past season, ranks fourth on the all-time scoring list for men’s basketball with 1,569 points. While he scored 548 points in 2021-22, there was a possibility that Ellis wasn’t going to return after playing 13 games in his senior season. However, the lure of making a run at a national championship was too great, and he came back and put in the extra work to make himself and the team better.

“I’d come back for a sixth if I could,” Ellis says. “The situation I got was awesome. Having the opportunity for guys like me to come back and do my fifth year, you can’t even put it into words what this year meant to me. There was a time that I really wasn’t going to come back. But then I decided to, and it’s been incredible. I’d do it again if I could."

When Marietta was sitting at 2-2 in November, there were some who doubted the Pioneers.

“We heard them, but we knew we were going to be OK,” Kreeger says. “We always play tough opponents and early in the season anything can happen.”

The Pioneers opened the season with a treacherous schedule that included Christopher Newport, Roanoke, Wabash and Randolph-Macon. Marietta defeated CNU 86-83 to open the season and then defeated the Captains again 81-79 to reach the Final Four.

Roanoke handed the Pioneers a 77-68 loss before heading back to Ban Johnson Arena for a showdown with Wabash, who also reached the Final Four. Marietta won 99-92 before the first meeting with Randolph-Macon.

Falling to No. 13 in the rankings, Marietta reeled off a school-record 27 consecutive victories. Marietta went 17-0 in the Ohio Athletic Conference and became the first team to sweep conference play since Otterbein went 16-0 in 1985-86.

“There are a lot of good teams in the OAC, but we went into every game believing we were better than our opponent,” Ellis says. “And we proved it every night. There were a few games that were close, but we never doubted we would win.”

With Ban Johnson Arena packed for every game, Marietta went 3-0 in the OAC Tournament, and the Pioneers improved to 25-2. The No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, Marietta was challenged in each postseason contest.

After getting by Medaille College 91-79, the Pioneers needed every one of Isaly’s 33 points to earn an 88-83 overtime win against a tough University of Rochester squad. “He’s a gamer. He’s a big-time player. He doesn’t shy away from the big moments. He just kept delivering,” VanderWal says.

In the NCAA Sectional Semifinal, Marietta faced a tough challenge from Oswego State, but the Pioneers rallied for an 89-81 win. Up next was CNU and for the second time in the tournament, the Pioneers needed Isaly to step up and he delivered 38 points in the two-point victory.

“It got to a point where we were just riding Lukas,” Ellis says.

Head Coach Jon VanderWal

Head Coach Jon VanderWal

Kreeger adds, “We have faith in everyone on our team to be the go-to guy on a given night. But what Lukas did during the NCAA Tournament was just amazing. He carried us to the Final Four.”

Graduation will impact the team next year, but VanderWal is confident.

“We don’t rebuild any more. We reload,” he says. “We have a lot of talent coming back. We have some serious talent in our freshman class that didn’t even dress for varsity games. I am proud of the culture we have built here, and we stress that culture as we recruit future players. I am excited to see what we do next.”

For now, a new standard of success has been established for the men’s basketball program.

“I’ll be the first one to congratulate the Marietta team that wins a national championship,” Isaly says. “Since the day I arrived, I have heard about how the 2011 team started this thing, and then I was part of the 2019 team that reached the Elite 8. I’m proud of everything we accomplished in my four years at Marietta, and I am excited that we were part of taking the next step for this program. Being a Marietta College Pioneer is the greatest decision I ever made. Now the future players must work even harder, and I am rooting for Coach V and this program to go win a national championship.”

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