Led by twin posts, Fighting Irish outhustle Marquette

SENECA — They don’t call them the Fighting Irish for nothing.

The Seneca boys basketball squad that lost to Marquette by a lopsided score of 62-41 in Ottawa a day less than two weeks ago, looked like a completely difference team in the Tri-County Conference rematch here on Friday night. The Irish used a relentless, seemingly tireless pressure defense to disrupt the Crusaders offensive flow, even out beyond the 3-point line, while at the same time scrapping for every rebound and loose ball in the paint.

The result was virtually a reversal of the running-clock loss back on Feb. 6, this time a 54-44 SHS victory.

“We went from being running-clocked two weeks ago to putting them away by double digits. That shows how good we can be when we play hard and play at the pace we want to play at.”

—  Seneca boys basketball coach Russ Witte

Zach Pfeifer, who netted 23 points in the loss to MA, led the Irish with 13 points, but the real difference this time was the play of twins Chase and Trey Hauch. They posted nine points and 11 rebounds and 10 points and nine boards, respectively, in addition to their physical defense that limited 6-7, 250-pound Cru center Vic Mullen to just eight points and five caroms.

Junior forward Beau Ewers picked up some of the slack with a team-high 11 points and nine rebounds. However, the Seneca defense that seemed to get a deflection on every other pass ended up forcing 10 MA miscues in the final period alone, 20 for the game, and held the visitors to 29.6% shooting (16-of-54) overall. That latter figure includes an incredibly icy 13% (3-of-

“The key to this game was the first half. We didn’t match their intensity whatsoever.”

—  Marquette boys basketball coach Todd Hopkins

23) from the arc for the 3-point oriented Cru attack.

“I cannot give enough credit to Trey and Chase Hauch. They’re 5-11, 6-0 and they dominated inside,’ said Seneca coach Russ Witte. “I don’t know what we outrebounded them by, but it was a lot (44-35). In a situation when they have us outsized at every position, they were getting the most out of their physical talents. …

“We still played everybody in the first half, and I thought all 13 kids contributed with a key rebounds, a basket, a free throw … and a lot of the turnovers we had were aggressive turnovers, and I can live with that.

“(Varsity assistant Dan) McCarthy just told me that we went from being running-clocked two weeks ago to putting them away by double digits. That shows how good we can be when we play hard and play at the pace we want to play at.”

Seneca (4-3, 4-3 in the T-C) was the aggressor throughout, breaking an 8-8 first-period tie with 18 of the next 24 points on the strength of a 13-4 edge on the glass. Trey Hauch had five of those points and Chase Hauch four of those rebounds.

Down 11 in the second stanza, Marquette (5-3, 4-3) started its rally in the third, cutting it to four on a Luke Couch trey at the 5:12 mark, to two on Lucas Hoffman’s steal and lay-in at the buzzer and to one after a Couch free throw started the final period.

But the guests could never get over the hump. After a three-point play by Mullen with just 2:52 remaining made it 42-40 Irish, Seneca poured in the next nine points, starting with a steal and lay-up by Noah Quigley just 20 seconds later. The next seven were all on free throws by five different players, widening the lead to 51-40 in the final minute.

“The key to this game was the first half. We didn’t match their intensity whatsoever,” said Marquette coach Todd Hopkins. “This is the kind of team that’s like a good running team in football. If they get ahead of you, they’re going to eat the clock and they did an outstanding job doing that. …

“They outplayed us, that’s for sure, and had a lot more energy than we did. They played their butts off, they outhustled us, got just about every loose ball.

“Give them credit for doing that. They got us to play their type of game and we just didn’t respond to it the way we needed to.”