It's unusual for a basketball team to deal with a ton of change just two weeks into the season, but the Marian girls basketball team has its work cut out for them.

The 2014 season is young and the Fillies are already dealing with the adversity of a lot of personnel changes due to last season's graduates and unfortunate injuries piling up.It's no coincidence, however, that head coach Paul Brutto has been at the helm of this successful Marian program for over two decades.Brutto's squad continued to find ways to win last night regardless of who steps on the court. Marian fended off Shenandoah Valley in an important early season Schuylkill League clash, 35-26."Tonight was a great defensive effort," explained Brutto. "We did a pretty good job on (Abigail) Snitzer. We don't have a ton of offensive firepower right now, so we're going to have to win ugly, low scoring games like this if we're going to win at all."Marian needed someone to step up in the absence of some of its reliable scoring threats, and Brenna Karnish answered the call with 13 big points during the victory.Another key to success against Shenandoah was the Fillies' strong team defense. Although Abigail Snitzer scored 15 of the Devils' 26 points, her supporting cast was ice cold from the floor."When we've played Marian other years we're looking at 25 turnovers, and it wasn't the case tonight," said Shenandoah coach Chris Conroy. "We moved the ball and got shots for our comfortable shooters, it just wasn't our time tonight."The Devils (3-1) put up point totals of 64, 59, and 61 in their first three games of the season. Each team, including Shendandoah, ran their respective half court sets well to manufacture opportunitiesthe Devils just couldn't convert."It's kind of like there was a lid on it (the rim) tonight.," Conroy said. "We have two of the better shooters in the league; there were a lot of in and outs. That was the story of the game, you need to put the ball in the basket and we just had a rough night."Abby Whildin of Marian was huge in a critical sequence late in the fourth quarter.Although Shenandoah dominated the turnover margin on paper, Whildin converted a huge steal and score combination with three minutes left which made the contest a two-possession ball game."It's the first time some of our younger girls saw an environment with this type of intensity," said the Shenandoah coach. We took care of the ball, but we need to shake it off and hope that we'll see them again when it means something."Brutto said of Whildin, "She has to be big part of our game plan. She's closing in on 1,000 (career) points and she needs to be one of our scoring options along with (Vanessa) Whitecavage and Karnish. The other girls are role players right now and that's fine, but we need offense out of our main weapons now with what' we're missing."Whitecavage was also impressive as the Fillies' point guard during the victory. The junior captain seemed to be in total control of Brutto's half court offenseand contributed seven points along with a handful of critical assists."She did a nice job tonight and played a lot better in the second half," Brutto said. "She's making slow improvement and that's what you want. She's probably our best outside shooter, so we like to run her off the ball sometimes and get her some looks."Despite all of the sudden changes and some new faces on the court, Marian now has a record of 4-1 and looks to continue its strong start against Mahanoy Area on Friday.Brutto said, " We're very happy right now. It's a nice win early on in the season, we'll take that one and put it in the bank."SHENANDOAH VY.Demalis 0-0-0-0, Nieddy 1-0-0-2, Teashenko 1-0-0-2, Creasy 1-4-4-7, Wargo 0-0-0-0, Snitzer 5-5-8-15, Michalik 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 8-9-12-26MARIANWhildin 1-5-7-7, Whitecavage 1-4-5-7, Correale 1-0-0-2, Shaud 1-0-0-2, Agosti 0-0-0-0, Karnish 4-4-6-13, Stoyer 1-0-1-2. TOTALS: 10-13-19-35Shenandoah 3 9 9 5 - 26Marian 6 11 9 9 - 35Three-pointers: SV - Creasy 1; M - Whitecavage 1, Karnish 1