2nd-half defense key for Indian Creek in win over Marquette

OTTAWA – In what was a tight game throughout between Indian Creek and Marquette on Monday night at Bader Gymnasium, Timberwolves junior Logan Schrader was able to find some open space in the final moments.

With the contest tied with three minutes to play, Schrader scored on a reverse layup off a pass from Cooper Rissman to give his team the lead for good. Schrader then converted a drive down the lane and, off another drive, found a wide-open Payton Hueber for a layup.

Indian Creek came up with a stop on the Crusaders’ last chance in the final seconds to hold on for a 41-39 victory.

“I feel like those plays just kind of happened for me tonight,” said Schrader, who finished with 12 points and five assists. “On each of those plays we had a set play break down, and off of that I was able to find a seam in the defense to take it to the hoop.”

Indian Creek (5-0), which held the hosts to 4-for-18 shooting in the second half after they shot 11 of 22 in the opening 16 minutes and created 20 turnovers for the game, was led by Hueber’s 17 points and three rebounds. Everett Willis added four points and a team-best six rebounds.

“Coach (Nolan Govig) talked at halftime about how we needed to ramp up our pressure on defense and I feel like we did a pretty good job of that,”

—  Logan Schrader, Indian Creek junior

“The key to the game was our defense in the second half,” IC coach Nolan Govig said. “In the first we allowed Marquette way too many easy baskets, most of them on offensive rebounds. We just weren’t boxing out like we should have been. We spent pretty much the entire halftime talking about how defense was going to win or lose this game. I really like how my guys came out in the second half and made things difficult on the offensive end for Marquette and did a much better job limiting them to one shot down the floor.

“Logan is a gamer. He shoots the ball well, but when I feel he is at his best is when he is driving the ball to the basket. He can finish or he can find open teammates off the drive. You saw him do both of those things in the final three minutes tonight. He made three great plays for us down the stretch to help us get and hold the lead.”

Marquette led 16-9 after the opening quarter, 25-17 at halftime and 31-28 heading to the fourth. IC opened the final quarter scoring the first five points, but a free throw by Griffin Dobberstein and a short jumper in the lane by Marcus Baker tied the game at 34-all.

From there, the aforementioned hoops by Schrader at the 2:35 and 2:13 marks and his nifty dish with 53 seconds remaining made it 40-37. Dobberstein hit a pair of free throws with 14.2 seconds left, and the T-Wolves missed a pair with 13.1 left. Marquette grabbed the rebound and called timeout.

On the final possession, Dobberstein (13 points, five rebounds) was able to drive in close, but his shot came up just short as time expired.

Marquette (3-2) also received 10 points, four rebounds and three steals from Alec Novotney and six points and three rebounds from Baker.

“Give Indian Creek credit because they fought the entire game,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “They have a number of guys back from last season, so they have experience, where we are still a bit young and trying to adjust to the physicality of the varsity game. We have to clean some things up, but we also haven’t had any practice time to be able to really do that. We just need a few practices to be able to address the things we know we have to get better at.

“We got pushed around a little bit, and that’s bothers me, but that is also something that we’ll talk about as we move forward.”

Schrader said it was great to see the team come out and play a good second half.

“Coach talked at halftime about how we needed to ramp up our pressure on defense, and I feel like we did a pretty good job of that,” Schrader said. “If was tough to score points tonight, so on nights like that you just have to play defense as hard as you can and hope you can get points off turnovers and steals.”

Both squads are right back in action on Tuesday with IC traveling to play Aurora Central Catholic and Marquette hitting the road to take on DePue.