A full two hours before last Friday night's game against WaMaC Conference rival Vinton-Shellsburg, Marion girls' basketball coach Sheryl Gaffney-Paige was helping tie balloons to gift-bags that would be handed out later that night to the team's seniors.

It was Senior Night in the Marion gym, and the atmosphere was festive. It would get only more festive as the evening wore on.

On a night in which the Marion faithful said goodbye to seven seniors - including 2010 Miss Iowa Basketball candidate Morgan Paige - the Indians shot past the Vikettes, 57-47, to clinch their third straight WaMaC West Division crown.

Class 3A eighth-ranked Marion took records of 18-1 overall and 12-1 in the WaMaC into Tuesday night's game at Clear Creek-Amana. The Indians play their regular season finale Saturday at home against Class 4A fifth-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

They can then look forward to hosting Benton Community in a first-round regional tournament game Feb. 17.

Gaffney-Paige has been particularly close to this senior class, considering her daughter, Morgan Paige - who is in the process of re-writing the Marion record books - has been such a prominent member.

"I've been around these senior girls for a long time, and having a daughter on the team … it's a close-knit group, and they've had a lot of successes together," Gaffney-Paige said. "I want them to go out together and be happy, but there are bigger things down the road."

The Indians cut down the net on one of their baskets after Friday's win over Vinton-Shellsburg to celebrate the third league title. The win was their 12th straight after a pre-Christmas loss to Williamsburg.

"I thought we had some good players that could compete in the conference, and I wasn't pleased when we lost to Williamsburg early on, but actually that was a lesson learned for us," Gaffney-Paige said. "We had to get better on the defensive end and we had to get more people involved. Sometimes your losses are your biggest successes and that definitely proved to be the point with that."

Last week started in record-breaking fashion when Morgan Paige - who will be at the University of Wisconsin next season - dropped in 43 points in an 80-64 home court win over Benton Community. The 43 points were a school record single-game high, and Paige accomplished it by continually driving the lane to the basket, which resulted in her making 16 of 25 shots (64 percent) from the floor.

She followed with 16 points in the win over Vinton-Shellsburg, which swelled her school record career scoring total to 1,652 points. She had 481 points this season in her team's first 19 games (25.3 points per game), a total just 62 points shy of Kristin Popovics single-season record of 543.

"Morgan came into this season this year and she was so mature and so confident," Gaffney-Paige said. "She really worked on her game this summer - she has big aspirations and she wants to make an impact at Wisconsin and she wants to play at the next level. So she takes every game preparing to get to that next level. She's not under pressure, she's playing relaxed, having fun, getting her teammates involved. She's just enjoying herself and I think that's the key."

Other seniors honored Friday were Brittany Fish, Amanda Peterson, Maggie Murphy, Alyssa Reisner, Chelsea Jones and Alli O'Neill. All have played big roles in the Indians' success the past three years.

Fish, a 5-foot-7 guard, was particularly productive last week. She had 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting (three 3-pointers) and five assists in the win over Benton. She came back with 15 points (four 3-pointers), three assists and five steals against Vinton.

O'Neill had eight points and nine rebounds and Peterson eight points against Benton, and Murphy had five points and six rebounds against Vinton.

Junior Kristin Kramer had a nice week with seven points against Benton and 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting against Vinton.