NASHVILLE – If anything represented Marquette Catholic's dramatic come-from-behind 55-48 win over Nashville in Friday night's IHSA Class 2A Nashville Sectional final, it was a spurt of 1:49 in the third quarter that saw the Explorers rally from being behind 32-30 to taking a 38-32 lead.
Sophomore Isaiah Ervin went on a tear in that 1:49, hitting twice from behind the three-point line and then getting the ball on a Hornet turnover and driving for another score that put Marquette in control of the game and sent them to Tuesday’s Class 2A Super-Sectional at SIU Arena in Carbondale against Mount Carmel; the tip is set for 7:30 p.m., with the winner advancing to next weekend’s state tournament in Peoria.
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Ervin ended the game with 11 points, eight of them coming from that burst that put Marquette in the driver's seat.
“I was on the bench thinking about what I could do to help the team,” Ervin said. “I just made them and helped the team out.”
Ervin's burst highlighted an 18-3 third-quarter run that enabled the Explorers to rally from nine points down at the half and as much as 10 down in the early stages of the third to taking a six-point lead. “We just kept playing,” Ervin said. “We don't let things bring us down; we keep playing hard.
“We talked about it in the locker room (at halftime); we kept our intensity up. I had to think and keep playing.”
The win put the Explorers past the tournament's round of 16 and into the quarterfinals for the first time. “We were taking the games one by one,” Ervin said. “We didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”
That the title is Marquette's first-ever sectional title wasn't lost on Ervin. “That's a big accomplishment to me,” Ervin said, “and I'm a sophomore; I've got two more years to go (at Marquette).”
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