After Marquette Academy fell behind four points to Serena and the Huskers’ backcourt pressure following a quarter of play Friday, Crusaders coach Todd Hopkins had a message for his team.

Slow down.

The Crusaders composed themselves, outscoring the Huskers by 11 points in the second quarter on their way to a 55-41 win and a spot in a scheduled Huskers Hardwood Tip-Off Tournament title game at 10:30 a.m. Saturday against Hall.

With the loss, the Huskers dropped to the scheduled 9 a.m. third-place game against Seneca.

“We knew they were going to come out aggressive,” said Crusaders junior forward Lucas Craig, who finished with a game-high 17 points. “(Coach Hopkins) said we need to slow it down and not get sped up.”

The Huskers held a 22-20 lead as late as 3:09 left in the second quarter following a 4-0 run. The Crusaders, however, closed out the half on an 11-2 run, with four points from Craig, three from Griffin Dobberstein and baskets from Luke McCullough and Caden Durdan to take a 31-24 lead into the locker room.

“I knew Serena would come out with a ton of energy, and I thought we weathered their storm there early in the game,” Hopkins said. “They make you play faster than you want to play sometimes, and that’s a credit to them. I thought we settled down, got the ball inside, hit some shots from the outside and handled their zone a little bit better.”

Marquette led by double digits the majority of the second half, building as much as a 20-point lead late in the fourth quarter. Along with Craig, Dobberstein had double digits in scoring with 13 points, highlighted by three 3-pointers.

With nine different Serena players registering points Friday, the Huskers had a pair in double digits. Cash Raikes tallied 11 points, and Hendrix Johnson scored 10.

Serena coach Dain Twait credited Marquette’s defense for flipping the game in the Crusaders’ favor.

“That’s a good team,” Twait said. “They’ve got a lot of weapons, nice size, their defense just smothered us. We couldn’t initiate any physicality. They play good defense.

“There’s definitely good stuff (from Friday), but it’s disappointing we didn’t make a little bit more of a run in the second half, but they never gave us anything,” Twait said. “They just smothered us.”

McCullough and Slayden Cassel each tallied nine points, and Durdan put in seven to round out the scoring for the Crusaders.

“I think we played pretty good defense,” Craig said. “We moved the ball well and eliminated our turnovers. I think we had a pretty good performance.”

The Huskers converted back-to-back baskets just twice in the second half.

“We missed some opportunities, but I credit Marquette’s defense,” Twait said. “We haven’t gotten to enough offensive stuff early in the season to jell there.

“We showed that we’re a good enough team to compete with a team like that. (Marquette) turned it up to another level, and we’ve got to figure out how to do that.”

Craig said the Crusaders were looking forward to Saturday’s title game against Hall, knowing they would need to bring a high level of energy to match the Red Devils.

“It’s going to go to the gutsiest team,” Craig said. “We’re going to have to come out and play defense hard, box out. We’re going to have to do all those things.”

Weather could spoil the championship and third-place games. Heavy snows are projected to begin overnight and increase throughout the day, prompting Serena to move up Saturday’s top two contests.