Lehighton's shooting sparked an offensive inferno early.

Lehighton's defense froze Marian's comeback hopes late.That combination of fire and ice carried the Indians to a 51-39 non-league boys basketball victory over Marian on Monday night.Lehighton wasted little time taking control of the game as it drilled five of its first six three-point attempts and built a commanding 23-9 first quarter lead."Early on we did a nice job of making the extra pass to get wide open three-point shots and we were able to knock them down," said Lehighton coach Rich Oertner. "We got away from that after the first quarter but it was mainly because we were getting some looks inside."The problem was our big men were 5-for-26 over the last three-plus quarters of the game. I can't really blame them too much because most of the shots were good ones. We just didn't hit them."With Lehighton (2-1) finally cooling down from the floor, Marian began to inch its way back into the game, cutting a one-time 17-point deficit to 41-34 entering the final quarter."Our kids are resilient," said Marian coach John Patton. "For the second straight game, we really struggled early, but we never quit."Lehighton couldn't miss in that first quarter, but we hung in there and I thought we had the momentum and a chance to really make it interesting in the fourth quarter."The Colts never got any closer, however, thanks to Hunter Greene and the Indian defense.Greene scored the first five points of the fourth quarter, including a back-breaking three-point play to open the Lehighton lead back to double digits. He finished with game-high totals of 18 points and 11 rebounds."Hunter works really hard the entire game," said Oertner. "He's a big body inside and he's tough to play. He can also step out and hit a three every once in a while. He had a nice game tonight."While Greene was supplying the Indians with their fourth quarter offense, Marian was unable to generate anything at all at its offensive end.The Colts (1-2) turned the ball over on four of their first five possessions in the period and shot just 1-for-10 from the floor during the stanza."Lehighton is big, strong and quick," said Patton. "That's a pretty good recipe for being a tough 1-3-1 zone trapping team and that's exactly what they are. They took us out of what we wanted to do offensively, especially in the fourth quarter."They are also very well coached. They have a nice team."As the Indians showed last night, they are a team capable of burning you with their offense or freezing you with their defense. A little bit of fire and a little bit of ice.SOLID SIX ... The Indians used just six players and all of them had at least six points. Meanwhile, Marian used 11 players with almost all of them making multiple trips on and off the bench.NUMBERS GAME ... In addition to Greene's big game, the Indians got six points and seven rebounds from Nick Chambers. For Marian, Brandon Mohammed and Ryan Karchner both had 12 points. Mohammed had eight rebounds to lead the Colts and Josh Inama added seven boards.DAMAGE DONE EARLY ... Lehighton scored 23 points in the first quarter, but just a combined 28 over the final three period.GETTING DEFENSIVE ... The Indians limited Marian to just 30 percent shooting from floor (14-for-46), including 17 percent from three point range (3-for-18). Lehighton also forced 17 turnovers.MARIANCortese 0-0-0-0, Woitko 2-2-2-7, Puza 1-0-0-3, Karchner 5-2-3-12, Paisley 1-0-0-3, Kuczynski 0-1-2-1, DeAngelo 0-0-0-0, Mohammed 5-2-5-12, Plesh 0-0-0-0, Mummey 0-0-0-0, Inama 0-1-2-1. TOTALS: 14-8-14-39.LEHIGHTONMcDowell 2-0-1-6, Zwetolitz 2-0-0-6, Jackson 3-2-2-8, Mele 3-0-1-7, Chambers2-2-4-6, Greene 6-4-4-18. TOTALS: 18-8-12-51.Marian 9 12 13 5 - 39Lehighton 23 11 7 10 - 51Three-pointers: M - Woitko 1, Puza 1, Paisley 1. L - McDowell 2, Zwetolitz 2, Greene 2, Mele 1.