The St. Bede and Marquette basketball teams split a Tri-County Conference doubleheader Friday in Peru.

In the girls’ game, the Bruins pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 50-38 victory, while the Crusader boys held off a furious rally by St. Bede to win 65-60.

GIRLS

St. Bede 50, Marquette 38: St. Bede’s Savannah Bray scored the first six points of the game and the Bruins scored the first nine and led the whole way.

“It was really good,” Bray said about the start. “We need to come off the bench with a lot of energy. We got fired up in the locker room and I felt like it was good for our team to get up like that.”

The Crusaders had no answer for Bray, who scored a game-high 27 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.

“They’re a really bad matchup for us size-wise,” Marquette coach Eric Price said. “We don’t have a girl over 5-8 and she’s a guard, so we knew going in we were going to have our hands full with Bray and (Ava) Balestri. And we did. Bray had a great game. We allowed too many offensive rebounds. You give girls second chances and that’ll hurt you.”

Bray scored in a variety of ways for the Bruins, getting buckets in the post, scoring off offensive boards and stepping out and hitting four mid-range jump shots.

“I think I played well,” Bray said. “I’ve been practicing my shots and my form shooting. We can shoot as posts. We have really good shooters. We used that tonight and we used our height to our advantage.”

The Bruins built a 14-2 lead and led 14-5 after the first quarter.

Marquette pulled within 14-10 early in the second, but the Bruins pushed it out to 22-10 and led 25-19 at halftime.

The Crusaders got as close as 36-34 on a 3-pointer by Hunter Hopkins, but St. Bede led 38-34 after three quarters and pulled away in the fourth as the Bruins only allowed Marquette to make four free throws in the final eight minutes.

“We played good defense,” St. Bede coach Tom Ptak said about how the Bruins held off Marquette’s runs. “We got some steals. Jamming the cuts was big for us and calling out screens. We were talking better on defense. They kept on coming back. We couldn’t get a big lead on them until the end. They’re good.”

The St. Bede defense focused on slowing down Marquette sharpshooter Kaitlyn Davis, and the Bruins did make things difficult for the junior but she still drained five 3-pointers, went 8 of 8 from the line and finished with 26 points. Hopkins finished with eight points for Marquette (5-10, 1-3).

“Offensively, I thought we did some good things,” Price said. “I thought we got tentative in the third a little bit. We have to pull the trigger.

“It seemed like every time we broke it down and got within 4-6 points, Bray would end up either getting to the line of hitting a bucket. As soon as we’d make a run, she’d do something to offset that.”

Along with Bray’s double-double, Lili McClain scored 10 points for the Bruins (10-9, 4-2).

BOYS

Marquette 65, St. Bede 60: Alec Novotney buried a 3-pointer with 5:42 left to put the Crusaders up by 17 points.

It looked as if Marquette would cruise to the win, but the Bruins came storming back, getting as close as four points twice in the final minute.

“It got a little sketchy there for a minute, but I knew we were going to be able to dog it out,” Marquette sophomore Luke McCullough said.

St. Bede’s Alec Tomsha drained three 3s in the final five minutes and Gus Burr converted a three-point play with 1:20 left to make it 61-56.

A driving basket by Geno Dinges made it 64-60 with 22 seconds to go.

“We came back, but we just kind of ran out of time there at the end,” St. Bede coach Brian Hanson said. “We got some balls that got tipped our way and we came down and cashed in on them. Tomsha hit a couple 3s, we got to the basket a couple times. We kept pushing it. I was proud of the way we handled our foul situation at the end.

“I thought the guys really grew. This was a tournament atmosphere game. It was a great crowd tonight. These are the games we want to play. We’ll keep learning from it and hopefully we’ll pull out some of these games.”

The Crusaders hit 6-of-10 free throws in the final 1:34 to help them hang on.

“We just couldn’t knock them out,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “They kept fighting the whole way. (Tomsha) hit a couple big shots. It’s a St. Bede-Marquette game. That’s how they all are. Doesn’t matter what sport. It’s just an old-fashioned get after it game and respect after.”

The Crusaders fell behind 11-4 early but pulled within 17-14 by the end of the first quarter and led 29-25 at halftime.

“They took it to us early in the game and got us out of rhythm,” Hopkins said. “We settled down in the second quarter. We got in serious foul trouble in the first half, but (Easton) DeBernardi, Caden) Durdan and (Matt) Graham came in off the bench.”

In the third quarter, Marquette fed the ball to the 6-foot-6 McCullough, who scored 10 of his 21 points in the frame as the Crusaders took a 46-34 lead into the fourth.

“I knew I was bigger than them and if they just fed me there was no way they were going to stop me,” McCullough said. “I just kept going straight up instead of taking extra dribbles and stuff.”

Novotney scored a game-high 24 points for Marquette (12-5, 4-1), while Burr led St. Bede (11-8, 2-3) with 15, Tomsha had 12 and Graham Ross added 10.