LITCHFIELD – The Civic Memorial Eagles and Marquette Catholic Explorers met in their second pool play game of the 2026 Rick McGraw Memorial Boys’ Basketball Invitational on Wednesday night, with the winner moving on to the championship bracket semifinals.
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Marquette fended off a late CM rally to win 49-44, setting up a Friday night semifinal with the Roxana Shells at 7:30 p.m.
“It’ll be fun,” Marquette head coach Steve Medford said on the upcoming semifinal.
“It’s still another game. We just have to keep improving. It’s another game on the schedule, and we still want to win, and try to advance to that championship game, and see what we can do.”
The Shells previously beat Marquette 51-42 back on December 2 in Alton.
The Explorers started out slowly on Wednesday night, trailing most of the first quarter to the Eagles.
Chase Jones scored the game’s first basket to give Marquette the lead, but CM scored the next three buckets to lead 6-2. Cam Jones and Lukas Zangori traded three-pointers to make it 9-5.
Back-to-back baskets tied the game at nine apiece, before one free throw from CM’s Grady Farrell. However, Marquette would take the lead on a buzzer-beater three from Chase Jones to make it 12-10.
The second quarter was wildly different, the Explorers outscoring CM 16-2, taking a 16-point halftime lead at 28-12.
From there, Marquette led the rest of the way, but CM put up a fight, especially in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to a triple and a couple of free throws from Charlie Kilpatrick, the Eagles cut the deficit to 43-37 with 1:41 left in the game.
Kilpatrick stayed the hot hand, drilling another three to make it 47-42 with 14.6 seconds left. Two more free throws made it 47-44 with nine seconds left, but Chase Jones sealed the game with two final foul shots to get to the final score, 49-44.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Medford said. “We played really well in that first half, got a lead by 16, and then in the third quarter, we kind of let them beat us by a few points. They make a few shots, we turn the ball over, and all of a sudden, it’s a basketball game.”
“I think we scored three points in the second quarter and gave up what, 15 or 16? If we clean that up a little bit, we could’ve been right there,” CM head coach Lee Green said.
“We still ended up being right there, we were down three with nine seconds to go. I think our kids did a good job with our halftime adjustments and they played with a little more urgency in the second half,” Green said.
Zangori led the Eagles with 18 points while Kilpatrick added 14 points, 12 of which came in the fourth quarter. The Eagles fall to 9-12 on the season.
The Jones brothers led Marquette to the win. Chase scored 19 points, Cam had 10, and Carson added six. Noah Menke scored five points and Jack Rea got three.
The Explorers improve to 15-4 and have won 12 of their last 13 games including seven straight.
