Marquette earns 57-51 TCC win in overtime over Seneca

OTTAWA — The postseason for the Seneca and Marquette boys basketball teams doesn’t begin until next week, but Friday’s Tri-County Conference and regular-season finale between the two rivals at Bader Gymnasium brough with it a little early March Madness.

But what else is new?

With boisterous crowd rocking the old barn on Paul Street from every direction, the Crusaders forced overtime with 20 seconds remaining in regulation, then outscored the Fighting Irish 11-5 in the extra session to earn a 57-51 victory.

The verdict improves Marquette to 16-15 overall with a 6-3 finish in the TCC, while Seneca drops to 25-6 and 8-1.

Marquette’s Alec Novotney — who netted a game-high 36 points, including 28 in the final 20 minutes — hit a 10-foot jumper in the lane to send the game to OT and then Griffin Dobberstein and Matthew Graham converted hoops off a pair of Seneca turnovers to start the extra frame.

“The only talk going into to overtime was that we had played a pretty good game up to that point,” Novotney said “We just had to keep playing hard and see how it all played out in the end.

“I feel like for us it’s energy. In some games this year it hasn’t been where it’s needed to be, but tonight it was. It the same energy we are going to have to bring next week if we want the same result as we got tonight.”

Novotney, who hit a half dozen shots from beyond the arc, then sank 6 of 8 free throws in the final two minutes as the Irish hit just 2 of 7 shots.

“Our game plan was to let Novotney shoot a lot and score a lot, and we excited that plan to a T,” Seneca coach Russ Witte said with extreme sacrarium. “We left him on switches, we left on cuts, we left him open on the perimeter. We just didn’t communicate like we need to on him.

“Then in overtime the first three possessions we turned the ball over, they scored on two and all of a sudden, we are behind the 8-ball and needing 3s to get back in it. We also didn’t do a good enough job at the free-throw line (8 of 15), it snake-bit us and it ended up costing us.”

Marquette led 10-9 after the opening quarter, but Seneca’s Paxton Giertz scored 10 of his 26 points in the second, including a trio of triples, to push the visitors to a 25-20 halftime lead.

Novotney scored eight points in the third quarter to help cut the deficit to 31-30 heading to the fourth.

The teams traded hoops and free throws for much of fourth before Novotney’s aforementioned jumper tied the game.

Dobberstein scored on a drive down the left side of the lane in the opening 15 seconds of overtime, then after a Seneca miscue, Graham jumper from the free-throw line hit the front of the rim and rolled in to give the hosts a 50-46 lead.

A free throw by Novotney was followed by a layup by Seneca’s Jeb Maxwell, but the Irish then mis-fired on four straight shots while the Crusaders were padding the lead from the charity stripe.

Lucas Craig (seven rebounds) and Dobberstein each had seven points for Marquette. Brady Sheedy and Maxwell (five rebounds) each had six points for Seneca.

“This was a good win for us, and we needed it,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “We haven’t played very well lately, but tonight we did and hopefully we can carry it over to Monday.

“Tonight, we took care of the ball and were just overall more physical, especially with our screens in the second half. We also rebounded the ball better in the second half and overtime.

“Giertz is going to get his points, he’s a special player, but I thought we did a pretty good job of not letting him get loose too often.”

Marquette next hosts Dwight on Monday at 6:30 p.m. in an opening round game of the Class 1A Marquette Regional. Seneca is part of the Class 2A Princeton Regional and will play the winner of Hall and Sandwich at 6 p.m. on Wednesday in the semifinals.