EDWARDSVILLE – One 12-minute stretch of the game made all the difference for Marquette Catholic Friday evening.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
It was a 12-minute stretch that saw the Explorers render Piasa Southwestern scoreless and allowed Marquette to go out to a lead that went to 37-21 at halftime to 55-21 at three-quarter time, a lead that invoked a running-clock rule for the final quarter and helped give Marquette a 61-26 win over the Piasa Birds to send them into Saturday night's final of the Metro East Lutheran Thanksgiving Turkey Tipoff Classic at MEL's Hooks Gym against the host Knights (see related story).
The Explorers went to 3-0 on the year, while Southwestern fell to 2-1; the Birds will take on Waterloo Gibault in Saturday evening's third-place game at 5:30 p.m. today, with the Marquette-MEL final set for 7:30 p.m.
“I thought we took their best punch,” said Explorer coach Steve Medford. “I thought they got a lot of open threes by us; the second and third quarter, I thought our pressure – we just dialed it up a little bit.”
The Explorers and Piasa Birds were even before Marquette went went on their hot streak. “I thought we dialed it up,” Medford said. “Our kids applied a lot of ball pressure and one of our goals has been to play at a little bit faster pace and apply a little bit more ball pressure; I thought our kids did a real good job at it – that's what we want to do.
“I thought our effort was really good the first two nights; tonight, our effort was really good and we made shots.”
Medford had some good things to say about Southwestern. “That's going to be a (Class) 2A team that goes really far,” Medford said about the Birds. “They've got some kids who can shoot the ball; the biggest thing with them is making sure you run them off the three-point line. I thought tonight, we did a good job of that; our objective was to make them put the ball on the floor, and we did a good job of that.”
Marquette went on to take a 24-17 lead on the Piasa Birds at quarter time before before moving out to the 56-21 lead at three-quarter time, Southwestern scoring four points in the second period and being shut out in the third before scoring again at the start of the final quarter.
Ben Lowis led Piasa with 10 points on the night, with Caleb Robinson scoring four and E.J. Kahl and Kyler Seyfried each scoring three; Isaiah Ervin led the Explorers with 22 points, with Jake Hall adding 14 and Reagan Snider nine on the evening.
Following Saturday's final, Marquette hosts Civic Memorial at 7:30 p.m. in their home opener and Nokomis at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1 for their Prairie State Conference opener; Southwestern hosts Carrollton for their home opener at 6 p.m. Tuesday before traveling to Litchfield at 6 p.m. Dec. 5 for their South Central Conference opener.
