Boys basketball: Top-seeded Seneca, No. 2 Marquette advance to semis at 97th Tri-County Conference Tournament

GRANVILLE – The Seneca and Marquette Academy boys basketball teams earned victories in Tuesday’s quarterfinals of the 97th Tri-County Conference Tournament at Putnam County’s R.M. Germano Gymnasium.

The top-seeded Fighting Irish raced to a double-digit lead in the opening three minutes in a 66-32 victory over No. 9-seeded St. Bede.

The No. 2-seeded Crusaders trailed by four at halftime before using a late third-quarter burst to move on with a 60-44 triumph over No. 10-seeded Putnam County.

Seneca (16-7) will play the winner of Wednesday’s quarterfinal between fourth-seeded Midland and No. 5 seed Lowpoint-Washburn at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the opening semifinal.

Marquette (13-6) will battle Wednesday’s winner pitting No. 3 seed Woodland and sixth-seeded Roanoke-Benson at 7 p.m. Thursday in the semifinal nightcap.

St. Bede (5-16) and Putnam County (4-18) will play in consolation semifinals Friday.

Seneca 66, St. Bede Academy 32

The Fighting Irish scored the game’s opening 11 points and 18 of the first 20 in rolling to a 21-8 lead after the first quarter. Seneca then used an 8-0 spurt midway into the second quarter to push its advantage to 34-13 on the way to a 39-19 halftime cushion.

Lane Provance paced Seneca with 16 points and nine rebounds. Paxton Giertz added 13 points, four assists and five steals, while Brady Sheedy chipped in 12 points, five rebounds and six assists.

The Irish hit 43% (25 of 58) of their shots and held a 40-30 rebounding advantage while forcing 23 Bruins turnovers, 16 in the first half.

“I thought our defensive pressure was really good, especially in the first quarter,” Seneca coach Russ Witte said. “The first time we played them this year, we didn’t really pull away until the fourth quarter, so tonight we really wanted to put good, solid defensive pressure on them full court and hopefully get a substantial lead right from the start.

“Another key was Lane, Tysen [Klinker] and Grant [Siegel] really dominated in the paint and on the glass. St. Bede was really trying to take away anything from the perimeter, and when teams do that against us, we have to have our big guys step up, and they did. I also thought Paxton did a great job of getting everyone involved on the offensive end of the floor.”

St. Bede, which shot 30% (14 of 47), was led by six points each from Mason Ross and Kaden Nauman, plus five points apiece from Kaden Newman and Nathan Husser (four rebounds, two blocks).

“I feel like the biggest key against Seneca is, first you have to find a way to slow down Giertz. But with that said, they have so many other kids that can hurt you, especially their inside guys,” St. Bede coach Brian Hanson said. “They are fast, they are strong, and just a really good overall basketball team.

“They just kind of blitzed us right from the start tonight, and we just didn’t respond very well to their defensive pressure. We just weren’t as confident with anything we did like we should have been.”

Marquette Academy 60, Putnam County 44

Crusaders sophomore Alec Novotney swished all five of his 3-point attempts in the first quarter to help his squad lead 19-15. In the second quarter, Panthers senior Owen Saepharn sank a trio of 3s, part of his 11-point quarter to help the hosts hold a 30-26 lead at the intermission.

Putnam County held a 33-31 lead early in the third quarter before a layup by Henry McGrath and back-to-back 3s by freshman Griffin Dobberstein helped the Cru lead 44-37 heading to the fourth. The Panthers used consecutive baskets by Jaden Stoddard and Bryce Smith to close to within 44-41, but three more 3s by Novotney and another by Carson Zellers pushed the lead to 15 with two minutes to play.

Novotney finished with a game-high 32 points, including hitting 9 of 12 from beyond the arc. Zellers had eight points, five assists and three steals. Marquette hit 50% (20 of 40) from the floor and 13 of 20 from 3-point range.

Saepharn paced PC with 18 points, Smith added 10 points and five steals, and Stoddard grabbed a team-best seven rebounds.

“You have to give [PC coach] Harold [Fay] and his team a lot of credit. They were ready to go right from the start and played us very tough for much of the game tonight,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “They were just outhustling us in the first half and playing better defense than we were. But then in the second half we started being the more aggressive team, played with a lot more fire and held them to 14 points in the second half.

“Zellers and Dobberstein each knocked down a couple of big shots for us there in the second half to help us extend out lead a bit. Alec’s 3s, boy, we needed every one of them. Putnam County did a good job of taking him a way in the second half, but like I said, we had other guys step up and hit shots when we needed them.”