OTTAWA – The Parkview Christian boys basketball team already had a few strikes against it heading into Thursday night’s nonconference clash at Bader Gym.

Not only was it playing on the road in one of the toughest venues in northern Illinois, it was a very young club, with eight sophomores and a freshman on its 13-man roster, that had struggled through the first 13 games of the season. And it got younger when the program’s only senior, leading scorer Alex Bernicky, fell ill just moments before the opening tip.

But when the host Crusaders shot lights out right off the bat, that was far too much for the visitors to handle.

Marquette connected on its first eight shots from the field while forcing the Falcons to 0-for-6 shooting and five turnovers in the first three minutes. That spelled out a 17-2 lead and propelled the hosts to a 62-35 running-clock victory.

Carson Zellers led the balanced Cru with 13 points, Alec Novotney chipped in 12 points, and Charlie Mullen had 11 points and a game-best nine rebounds, the latter figure pacing a 35-24 edge on the glass.

That and a sizzling 56.2% shooting (27 of 48) helped lift Marquette’s mark to 16-7 on the season and drop the Falcons to 7-17.

“I thought we played well in the first quarter and then really well in the third,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said of the 25-10 score in the third quarter. “It was very businesslike effort tonight. We moved the ball around really well like we have been lately, worked the ball in for close shots where normally we might have forced something. We did a good job of sharing it tonight, for sure.

“The third quarter was big for us, especially after the Seneca game when we didn’t have the best fourth quarter against that really good team. We did what we needed to do heading into two rough conference games the next two days.”

The Crusaders, who like the Irish are undefeated (5-0) in the Tri-County heading into games at Roanoke-Benson at 7 p.m. Friday and at Putnam County at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, could do no wrong Thursday.

A pair of baskets and a 3 by Novotney, and two buckets by Pete McGrath coming in the opening run capped by a fast-break lay-in by Zellers, set the margin at 17-2 before the Falcons even had a field goal.

A hoop by Caleb Van Denend, who had a team-best 10 points, got the visitors as close as they would get at 19-12 starting the second quarter.

Marquette scored 30 of the next 35 points, starting with a pair of jumpers by Daniel Hoffman, pushing the lead to 49-17 on a Zellers 3 from the left corner at the 4:43 mark of the third quarter.

“We started five sophomores tonight and it showed,” Parkview Christian coach Don Davidson said. “We show glimmers where we do things right, but we do a lot of things wrong, too. We’re basically a sophomore team.

“We had a nice comeback at the end of the first quarter, but in the third quarter, we just didn’t do the things we were supposed to do on either end of the floor, and that really hurt us. We were down 20, then all the sudden it’s 35. … But the kids never quit fighting. That’s the thing about them, they do fight and they don’t give up. There’s a nice core there, so we just have to keep learning and growing.”