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ALTON – There are basketball games where no matter what happens, the ball will simply not go into the basket.
Marquette Catholic had just such a game at home Friday night against Nokomis.
Regardless, the Explorers kept battling and scratching; it paid off for them as Marquette manage to squeeze past Nokomis 39-36 in both teams' Prairie State Conference opener at Marquette's gym. The win kept Marquette undefeated at 6-0 on the year and opened their 2016-17 PSC campaign at 1-0, while the Redskins fell to 0-5 on the year, 0-1 in the league.
“The big credit goes to the kids,” said Explorer coach Steve Medford. “We just continued to battle tonight; we went 11-for-50 from the field and 3-of-20 from three-point range; we didn't shoot the ball real, real well tonight, but we kept defending – we kept doing the little things we needed to do to stay in the game.
“I'm proud of my kids for that; obviously, it's not going to go down every single night, but they continued to do what we needed to do to to win.”
One thing Medford is happy with is the toughness of his Explorers. “We've got tough kids,” Medford said. “They hate to lose and I've said this a thousand times – if you hate losing more than you love to win, you're going to have a pretty good team, and I think we've got a lot of guys on our team that hate to lose.
“Nokomis is just a very good team – well-schooled, they're big, they're long, they create a lot of problems; they're going to give you a lot of open threes and tonight, they just didn't fall – it is what it is, and I'm just happy we got a 'w'.”
The ball certainly wasn't falling for the Explorers during the game; Marquette's defense made sure whatever chances the Redskins got were contested, and the ball was staying out of the basket for Nokomis. The teams scrapped and battled, the Redskins holding leads of 11-9 at quarter time and 17-16 at the long break. Marquette managed to slip ahead early in the third, but Nokomis forged a 20-20 tie not long after, with the teams trading scores until the Redskins nosed ahead at 26-24 at three-quarter time
Scores from Reagan Snider got Marquette to a 28-26 lead early in the final quarter as the Explorers managed to open up a 31-26 lead; Nokomis answered back to take the lead back at 32-31 thanks to a pair of Carter Sabol baskets. Isaiah Ervin put Marquette on top for good with a three-ball with 56 seconds left, then got a traditional three-point play with 34.8 seconds left to extend the lead to 37-32 to seemingly put the game out of reach. Nokomis wouldn't go away quietly and pulled to 37-34 with 23.7 seconds left, but a pair of free throws with 11.6 seconds to go clinched the game for Marquette.
Ervin led the Explorers with 10 points on the night, with Snider and Nick Hemann adding eight points each and Sammy Green nine; Sabol led Nokomis with 15 points, with Kamden Ransdell, Austin McDowell and Hendrix Barnes each scoring six points.
Next up for the Explorers is another clash with Metro East Lutheran at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday followed by an international game Thursday against Trinity Grammar School of Sydney, Australia, at 6 p.m. Thursday.
