Boys basketball: Quick start helps lead Marquette past Hall in 5th-place game

OTTAWA — The Marquette Academy boys basketball team had something new in store for coach Todd Hopkins at the beginning of Friday’s fifth-place game at the Marquette Christmas Tournament against Hall.

A fast start.

The Crusaders (9-6) scored the contest’s opening 11 points, then held off every rally the Red Devils threw at them the rest of the way for an eventual 68-57 victory at Bader Gymnasium.

“We were able to get off to a good start with some easy baskets off our defense in the first four minutes. We have talked before games about getting off to strong starts, but we haven’t had a game where we got things going right from the start until tonight,” Hopkins said.

“One thing that has been a constant this year is the kids’ effort. We’ve played pretty good defense all season, our offense has been pretty solid, and we are getting better every game. Overall, I’m happy with how we played in our four games this week.”

Sophomore guard Alec Novotney led a balanced Marquette scoring attack with a game-best 18 points, including four 3-pointers and 4 of 4 free throws. Senior Denver Trainor — an all-tournament pick — had 17 points and four assists, Peter McGrath 13 points, Carson Zellers nine points and five assists, and Charlie Mullen eight points and a team-best six rebounds.

Marquette led 18-8 after one quarter and 30-23 at halftime. Hall cut the disadvantage to four 30 seconds into the second half on a triple by Wyatt West, but seven points by McGrath and six by Trainor helped the Crusaders push the lead back to 48-37 heading to the fourth.

Payton Dye popped in 11 of his team-best 15 points and grabbed four of his five rebounds in the fourth for Hall, but it was offset by Marquette making good on 11 of 14 tries from the free-throw line.

West finished with 11 points and five rebounds for Hall (7-8). Braden Curran added seven points, and all-tourney honoree Max Bryant (seven rebounds, three assists) and Greyson Bickett six points apiece.

Marquette finished hitting a red-hot 58% (23 of 40) from the floor and 16 of 23 from the line. Hall shot 42% (23 of 55) from the field, 6 of 9 from the line and won the rebound battle 30-24.

“My only concern from tonight was that we still need to find a way when we have a team on the ropes to put them away,” Hopkins said. “We had a few chances to do that in this game, but we just kind of let Hall hang in there. That said, we did a good job of when Hall did get within a couple of scores, we found a way to push the lead back to double digits”