Boys basketball: No. 1 Seneca wary of tough Marquette Tourney field

OTTAWA – The location may have changed and prime parking spots might be a little harder to come by, but high quality small-school basketball will easily be found in Marquette Academy’s Bader Gymnasium when it take over as the site of the former Marseilles Holiday Tournament.

The Seneca Fighting Irish are hoping that the jinx of the top seed has stayed in Marseilles.

After 12 seasons in Ottawa’s neighbor to the east, the Marquette Christmas Tournament will feature many of its most exciting individual stars, like Hall’s Mac Resetich, Seneca’s Paxton Giertz, Putnam County’s Jackson McDonald and Marquette’s Tommy Durdan to name just a few, leading 16 of the best area boys hoops squads.

Included in that field are the defending runner-up and current repeat top-seeded and undefeated Fighting Irish, hoping to bust a trend that saw only one No. 1 seed capture the championship in its dozen seasons at Marseilles Grade School.

“I don’t know if its a curse or the fact that there’s so many other pretty darn good teams in there again,” Seneca coach Russell Witte said. “We lost to Flanagan-Cornell last year, a team that was senior-heavy, while we were young and inexperienced and it showed. Hopefully, we’re a year more mature and while we haven’t been playing our best basketball of late, we’ve had two good practices to refocus ourselves. We come in 10-0, but our goal is to be 14-0 when all is said and done … To do that, we’re going to have to handle everybody’s best shot.

“I think there are six really good teams that have a legitimate shot at bringing home the big trophy … and with all the great individual talents out there, you never know what can happen on a given night.”

Starting with Monday’s first contest at 9 a.m., No. 5 Serena and standouts Cam Figgins and Tanner Faivre will carry a 10-1 mark into their first-round encounter with unseeded Dwight (2-8). The Trojans are led by 6-foot-7 center Wyatt Thompson, who scored 35 points in Tuesday’s 70-52 win over Ridgeview.

Sending second-round opponents against that winner and loser will be the 10:30 am. match-up between No. 4 Lexington and Somonauk. The Minutemen are 11-1 operating behind the three-headed monster of Ethan Storm (16.1 ppg, 3.3 spg), Alec Thomas (14.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 4.6 apg) and Griffen Hari (10.7 ppg), while the Bobcats have reached 3-7 so far, despite solid play from Carson Bahrey and Colton Eade.

At noon, No. 8 St. Bede (3-6) will square off against a familiar foe in rival Hall (4-7) and the high-scoring Resetich, who recently put up 44 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in a 67-58 win over the Bruins on Dec. 14. In that same game, Isaiah Hart posted 21 points and 6-3 forward Landon Jackson added 11 for the Bedans.

Completing the top half of the bracket will be the Fighting Irish, still undefeated in 10 games following Tuesday’s 57-39 win at home over Newark, opening their run at 1:30 p.m. against Indian Creek. Leading the Irish is Braden Ellis, Calvin Maierhofer and Giertz, who had a season-high 30 points in a win over Somonauk.

The young Timberwolves, under first-year coach Nolan Govig, have started out 3-9, including an 81-41 loss to Marquette at Bader Gym.

In the lower half, the 3:30 p.m. contest will pit a very tall No. 6 Reed-Custer squad against unseeded Flanagan-Cornell, which topped Seneca for the championship a year ago. The Comets (6-1) are carrying over their football success behind quarterback and 6-4 small forward Lucas Foote, while the Falcons have started out a solid 6-5 behind a red-hot start by 6-3 junior Kesler Collins. He averages 24 points and 16.1 rebounds a contest

The winner/loser of that game will meet the same from the 5 p.m. meeting between the veteran No. 3 Putnam County club (10-3) and Wilmington (3-4). Led by McDonald, Andrew Pyszka and Austin Mattingly, the Panthers placed third at last week’s Colmone Classic, edging Marquette in the third-place game. For the Wildcats, their 6-4 center Joey Cortese has had the hot hand so far.

No. 2 Marquette has used its depth at guard – including top per-game scorer Durdan – to place fourth at the Colmone Classic and forge a 7-2 record heading into its 6:30 p.m. opener on its home court against Route 23 rival Woodland (2-8). Their Tri-County Conference rival Warriors, paced by ace Connor Dodge, are off to a 2-9 start.

Finally, unseeded Earlville – 6-4 behind the balanced play of Diego Vazquez, Adam Waite and brothers Griffin and Garret Cook – will enter the fray at 8 p.m. against No. 7 Gardner-South Wilmington. Junior forward Cole Halpin leads the Panthers (7-5) with 19.2 points a game.