Marquette rolls past Dwight 63-33 in 1A regional opener

OTTAWA – Coming off a solid win over Tri-County Conference champion Seneca on Friday night, the Marquette boys basketball team was looking to carry the momentum of that victory over to Monday’s Class 1A regional opener against Dwight at Bader Gymnasium.

The Crusaders did ... and then some.

Marquette, the subsectional No. 7-seed, scored the opening nine points of the contest, pushed the lead to 20 three minutes into the second quarter and eventually recorded a 66-33 triumph over the No. 8-seeded Trojans.

Marquette (17-15) advances to Wednesday’s 6 p.m. Marquette Regional semifinal against No. 2 seed Hinckley-Big Rock (23-8). Dwight finishes the season 16-16.

“We played pretty well, but I didn’t expect this,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “We played a really good first half, then they sped us up a little to start the second half, but we did a good job of understanding that we were in pretty good shape and that we just needed to be patient. We didn’t do a great job rebounding the ball in the first half, but cleaned that up a little better in the second.”

The Crusaders —who finished 23 of 48 (48%) shooting — used solid nights from Alec Novotney (17 points, six rebounds, four assists. three steals), Griffin Dobberstein (16 points, four rebounds, three assists), Lucas Craig (13 points, six rebounds, two blocks) and Blayden Cassel (10 points, nine rebounds).

“We as players talked about carrying the momentum from Friday into tonight,” said Craig, a sophomore forward. “We’re into the time where if you lose the season ends, and we just aren’t ready for that to happen just yet.

“I think we had really good energy, and that’s something Hop is always talking about. We were ready to go right from the start, and I think it showed.”

Consecutive triples by Novotney gave the hosts a 9-0 lead three minutes in. Back-to-back offensive rebound hoops by Craig and Luke McCullough helped extend the lead to 23-9 after the opening quarter.

Five points each from Dobberstein and Cassel and another trey by Novotney in the second helped push the Marquette advantage to 40-16 at halftime.

The Crusaders were 15 of 27 from the floor in the opening half. Dwight hit just 5 of 28 in the same time frame and finished 11 of 63 (17%) for the game, including just 6 of 36 from beyond the arc.

“Marquette was really tough tonight, and they are playing really good ball right now,” Dwight coach Jeremy Connor said. “They made shots, made them early and beat us to the hoop. We talked pregame about how we couldn’t allow second-chance points and just didn’t keep them off the offensive boards in that first quarter.”

Dwight was led by Joey Starks (nine points, six rebounds, two steals), Joe Duffy (eight points), Collin Bachand (eight points, five rebounds) and Evan Cox (five points, eight rebounds, three steals).

“On the offensive end, we just didn’t finish,” Connor said. “We didn’t shoot the ball well early or overall, and in the second half it was a situation where down as much as we were, if there was any space we were shooting the 3.

“We didn’t get off to a great start, and things just snowballed from there.”

Hopkins said one main key was to not let Dwight get its fast break going.

“We talked about getting back on defense was going to big a big key tonight, because Dwight likes to push the ball up the floor,” Hopkins said. “They did get a few transition buckets on us, but not too many. It was really the same game plan we had on Friday night against Seneca – just make them work for what they get.

“This was a good win for us, but any win is good this time of year.”