Marshall Becomes Third Basketball Coach in State History to Win Girls and Boys State Titles
By Chris Johnson on March 23, 2025
There are certain principles of basketball that are effective no matter the age, no matter the level, no matter if it’s boys or girls.
You must put the ball in the basket. You must understand shot selection. You must master fundamentals like passing and dribbling. Conditioning is vital. You must knock down your free throws. You must box out and rebound.
And then there is defense – which is the perfect place to start when talking about Bridgeport boys basketball coach Dave Marshall.
The Indians won the Class AAA state championship on Saturday, marking the third boys basketball title in school history. The previous two came in 2001 and 1993. As much of a landmark victory Saturday’s 62-40 win was for the school and Marshall, it also put the longtime coach in rare company.
It is believed that Marshall became just the third high school basketball coach in the history of the state to win a state title in girls basketball as well as boys basketball and the first to do it at the same school.
Carl Clark coached the Stonewall Jackson girls to 1983 and 1984 state titles and then coached the Capital boys to 2000 and 2001 titles.
Clyde Green coached the Romney boys to 27-0 season and 1960 AA title and later coached Morgantown’s girls to a 23-1 record and 1978 AAA title.
Now Marshall has accomplished that feat as well as he won on the girls side in 2013 when Bridgeport led on the court by Miki Glenn and a typical stifling defensive effort defeated Westside 44-27.
“Dave’s team in 2013 with Miki, they beat us four times that year,” said Rob Hawkins, who knows a thing or two about coaching girls teams and boys teams at Lincoln and having success in both. “They beat us twice in the regular season, then in the sectional championship, then in the first round of the state tournament.
“The cornerstone of every team he has ever coached is defense. The defense that he coaches translates to any level, doesn’t matter if its boys or girls. He is one of the best man-to-man defensive coaches in the state. That has held true throughout his career.
Since he’s been the boys coach at Bridgeport, every year his system has been in place they have gotten a little better at it. He had the same thing with girls, it takes a couple of years to get them where they fully understand what he wants them to do. He is as good as we have in the state of West Virginia at teaching the principles of man defense and getting his kids to do what he wants to do.”
Marshall was named the BHS girls head coach in 1995 and coached them for 19 years. It was his first head coaching job at the high school level after stints as a volunteer assistant with the Liberty High School boys, the head coach for the Gore Junior High girls, and assistant girls jobs at Washington Irving and at BHS the year prior to taking the head coaching job.
“When I was coaching girls (at WI) back in the early 90s, I hired Dave as my assistant for one year,” said longtime Robert C. Byrd boys coach Bill Bennett. “The Bridgeport assistant job came open and I advised him to take it. Bob Cline was the head coach at the time but was getting ready to step away. I told Dave, ‘You are eventually going to get the head job there.’ That’s kind of really where it all started.
“He’s about all the right things. He’s very disciplined. He expects things to be done a certain way. He’s been that way for over 30 years since he got started. That discipline and the hard work he expects his kids to put in. He expects them to show up and lift in the offseason and put the work in.
“His team’s have always played just a little better defense than most teams. I’ve seen him win games against teams that were maybe a little more talented, but they just couldn’t get shots off.
“He’s a great person and a great friend. We’ve battled through the years because I’m a (North) Carolina guy and he is an Indiana guy. We both ended up work Carolina’s camp together so he got a little a taste. My nickname for him has always been, ‘The General.’
“He’s a special coach. He’s a special person.”
The 2024-25 Class AAA state champion Indians had a lot of strengths from balanced scoring to senior leadership to dynamic sophomore point guards but defense was unquestionably what this team hung its hat on and its something that every player on the roster bought into from Day 1.
The Indians finish the season with a record of 26-1 and a 23-game win streak. In all but three games this year they held their opponent to 50 points or less. They held their opponent to 40 or less in nine games and 30 or less in eight games.
On Saturday, they jumped out to a 17-6 lead against Nitro and never looked back. The six points allowed marked the 65th time the Indians held an opponent to 10 points or less in a quarter.
Although Nitro exceeded the total of 10 that the Indians aim to keep an opponent under in the three remaining quarters, the Wildcats still only finished with 40.
In two Region II tournament games and three state tournament games, the number of points allowed by Bridgeport were 30, 23, 32, 30 and 40. Arguably, the Indians five best defensive performance came in their five postseason games.
“The reason I put such a heavy emphasis on defense, and it’s not, ‘We’re going to play defense tonight,’“ Marshall said following the victory against Nitro “It’s how we approach everything. You watch our practices in November, literally 75 to 80 percent of our practices are dedicated to defense. It’s the offseason, the way we go in the weight room, the way we condition, everything revolves around defense.
“Why is that? I’ve been blessed enough to be in this room more than once and defense carries you come tournament time. It’s sure nice to have some offense like we had today but we’ve had far from our best offensive game the past two games. The defense kind of carried us and I’ve always thought that’s the case and this only helps validate that.
“The first one (2013) was special,” Marshall said. “This one is special too because COVID got us (in 2020) and we had other issues that made it difficult to get the culture built that we wanted to get built.
“It’s nice to get one with the boys and I’m happy to have went on this ride with them but honestly it’s more nice to reward these boys, these seniors and their parents for buying in.”
That emphasis on defense was present during his tenure as the girls coach at BHS and he took it with him when he rejoined Bennett at RCB as a volunteer assistant for the boys team. He took it with him when he was the head boys coach at his alma mater, Liberty, for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. It was with him when he went back with the RCB boys for the 2018-19 season, and it was with him when he took the head boys coaching job at Bridgeport at the start of the 2019-20 season.
During those two separate stints with RCB, Marshall made a quick and lasting impression on current RCB head coach Basil Lucas.
“Dave is old school and he’s intense,” Lucas said. “It’s this way with all the good coaches, ‘This is the way we are doing it.’ You have principles as a coach and if you are going to win at a high level you can’t let go and Dave has those principles and most of them are on the defensive end of the floor and taking care of the basketball.
“Those are things he preached when we coached together at Byrd. He does a great job of teaching. He changed my perspective on something I never even thought of, because you learn from guys you work with. He always talked about the importance of the first four minutes of the third quarter. That’s something I talk about with my guys now.
“He’s a class act. All the success he’s earned, he deserves it.”
Two of Bridgeport’s 26 wins this year came against Basil and the Eagles, who made it to this year’s state tournament as the No. 7 seed in Class AAA. Bridgeport defeated RCB in the regular season, 67-47 and 57-38. Both games were tightly contested through the first half before Bridgeport used a strong defensive-led third quarter to take control of the game.
It was a similar recipe against another local rival, Fairmont Senior, which the Indians had to go through three times en route to capturing the state championship. Twice in the regular season and then the third meeting came just a few days ago in the state tournament semifinals.
Bridgeport won the two regular-season games 53-35 and 56-38, respectively, and then 46-30 to advance to the championship game in Charleston.
Fairmont Senior coach Dave Retton is quick to point out something that happened in all three and something that happens in every game where Marshall is the opposing coach.
“What makes his teams so good is they can play defense in the halfcourt and in a fast-paced game,” Retton said. “They limit your opportunities no matter what you are trying to do offensively.
“Dave is loyal. He has high standards for himself and for his team. His teams are always so defensively sound. He gets his players to buy into his system.
“He is a student of the game and continues to learn and above all he is just an outstanding person. A great friend.”
Marshall will be the first person to tell you that he hates losing more than he loves winning. He will also tell you that he’s more excited for his players to win a state championship than he is to be the coach of a state championship team.
Yet there is a level of fulfillment when you are the last team standing. There is no better proof that your coaching vision has some merit to it than being a state champion. And now he has accomplished it on the girls side as well as the boys.
“When you have a vision of the way you want the culture to be it takes time and there is going to be push back and sometimes it’s less than pleasant,” Marshall said. “You have to stick it out and know you are going to be challenged especially if you have a vision that asks people to do something that they are not used to doing or don’t want to be doing.
“I’ve said from the beginning; kids will do whatever you ask them to do if they trust you.
“This comes from Joe Retton and I told Dave again the other day how much of an influence his Dad was on me. He used to say, ‘Discipline is love.’
“You don’t hear that much now. Some people think discipline is a negative word. I think absence of discipline is a negative connotation.”
Editor's Note: Top photo shows Marshall cutting down the net following Bridgeport's victory in the Class AAA state championship game against Nitro. Second photo features Marshall giving instruction to (from left) Anderson McDougal, Carter Zuliani, Jack Spatafore and Lan don Sanders. Third photo is of Marshall and Miki Glenn after the 2013 state championship victory against Westside. Four photo shows Marshall and Sanders embracing after the Nitro win. Fifth photo features Marshall talking with his team and bottom photo shows Marshall on the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center floor. Photos from this year's boys state tournament by Joe LaRocca.
File photo of Marshall and Glenn by Ben Queen Photography.
