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COLUMBIA – Marquette Catholic hadn't played a game since their win over Belleville Althoff at home Dec. 16.
Whatever rust the Explorers may have had to shake off was shaken off fairly quickly as MCHS got out to a 37-20 halftime lead on Waterloo and went on to record a 66-49 win over the Bulldogs in an opening-day win of the Columbia-Freeburg Holiday Tournament Wednesday night; the win sent the Explorers to 10-0 on the year while dropping Waterloo to 3-9.
Some of the rust from the break showed up during a stretch of the first half, felt Explorer coach Steve Medford.“The rust settled in the second half, and that 11-day layoff was kind of critical,” Medford said. “I'll tell you what, (Waterloo) has a lot of kids who can shoot the basketball; what makes them difficult is that they don't run a lot. They run a motion offense; I thought that our kids kind of got lost a little bit in that second half.
“Defensively, we weren't closing out very well – I wish we'd get a little bit more killer instinct as a group to really put somebody away and get it done with.”
One thing that made Medford happy was Reagan Snider's 22-point game; Snider, a senior, came up with some crucial plays all night long. “I'll tell you what, Reagan's been tough,” Medford said. “He's had a really good year this year; you talk about big buckets, he's had a lot of great big buckets for us.
“Defensively, he's really, really good; when he gets on the boards, he does all the little things and the tangents for us to win – he had some really big buckets for us and I thought Sammy (Green) had a couple of nice buckets there late for us.”
The Explorers got out of the gates quickly and built a lead on the Bulldogs, going out to a 22-7 lead at quarter time before Waterloo rallied to cut the lead before Marquette surged again to go ahead 37-20 at the long break. The Explorers withstood Waterloo surges to cut the lead before coming up with some scores to keep the Bulldogs at bay, getting ahead at 49-34 at three-quarter time and holding off Waterloo in the final quarter.
Besides Snider's performance, Isiah Ervin contributed 15 points and Nick Hemann 11 to help the Explorer cause on the night; Trey Whalig led the Bulldogs with 17 points while Eli Dodd had 13 points and Jackson Ivers added 11 for the game.
Marquette resumes play in the tournament with a game against Triad at 5:30 p.m. today and wraps up group play against Lebanon at 1 p.m. Friday afternoon; the final is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, pitting the first-place teams in Groups A and B against each other.
