1A girls basketball: Lilly Craig’s triple-double, Hunter Hopkins’ shot lift Marquette past GSW in overtime

OTTAWA – Neither Marquette Academy nor Gardner-South Wilmington were ready to see their season come to an end in Saturday evening’s play-in game of the Class 1A Marquette Regional, that much was apparent.

But only one team could advance to Monday’s 6 p.m. semifinal against regional top seed St. Bede, and in a contest filled with big-game performances, that team was the Crusaders.

Freshman guard Hunter Hopkins drained the game-winning 3-pointer from the top of the arc with 43 seconds left in overtime, senior teammate Lilly Craig recorded a 19-point, 15-rebound, 10-block, five-assist, three-steal triple-double, and Gardner-South Wilmington’s Maddie Simms’ inbounds steal and quick shot just ahead of the final buzzer rolled out, giving Marquette a 54-53 victory and setting up a rematch with archrival St. Bede.

“Hunter’s late shot really helped, obviously, and I thought we just had some good composure near the end,” said Craig, the only senior on the Marquette roster. “Being a young team, that’s hard, it’s just tough, but I thought we had a lot of composure.”

In addition to the huge game from Craig, Marquette (18-11) also received 16 points and four steals from Kaitlyn Davis and seven points apiece from Hopkins (seven rebounds, three assists) and Keely Nelson. Avery Durdan added five points and as many rebounds, with Kelsey Cuchra contributing six rebounds despite Marquette being outrebounded 51-41 and committing as many turnovers as the Panthers with 18.

“We had the lead up to seven,” Marquette coach Eric Price said, “and we were playing like we were behind 10. It was weird, and we told them to slow down, slow down, but that’s youth. ...

“We pulled it out, we’ve had a decent year, and we’ve got a tough one Monday with St. Bede. We’ll see how it falls.”

Addi Fair scored a game-high 26 points and added 15 rebounds of her own to lead GSW (21-10). Grace Olsen (nine points), Maddie Sims (seven points, 10 rebounds), Aspen Lardi (six points) and Madison Wright (five points, 11 rebounds, four blocked shots) also contributed heavily for the Panthers.

Gardner-South Wilmington rallied from nine points down in the first half and six down in the final three minutes of regulation to force overtime and scored first in the extra stanza to lead 51-49 before Hopkins’ clutch 3 with 43 seconds left flipped the advantage. After trading free throws from Nelson and Fair to make it 54-53 Marquette with 3.5 seconds remaining, Marquette’s inbounds pass under its own basket was stolen by the quick-handed Simms.

She immediately pivoted and tried a baseline jumper, but it rolled around the rim and to the floor as time expired.

“It’s hard to put into words just how proud I am of the team overall,” GSW coach Adam Leigh said. “They’ve put in so much work this season, and over these last three weeks we’ve kind of struggled ... losing games we shouldn’t have lost, but we came in here tonight and played one of the best games we’ve played all season.

“It didn’t work out for us, but I told the girls, ‘You’ve got nothing to hang your heads about. It was a hell of a good effort tonight.”

The Crusaders led 17-13 through one quarter and 28-22 at the half before seeing the Panthers rally to tie it 35-35 heading to the fourth. Marquette reassumed the advantage 43-39 on a Craig bucket with 4:29 to play followed by a Durdan 2-pointer 25 seconds later and ran that lead to 47-41 before Fair — who scored 15 of her 26 points in the fourth quarter and overtime — led the comeback that forced an extra four minutes.

Marquette won one of three meetings with St. Bede this season, defeating the Bruins 60-55 back on Dec. 27 but losing the next two 55-47 on Jan. 8 and 60-48 Jan. 15.