Boys basketball: Marquette opens Tri-County play with slugfest win at Roanoke-Benson

ROANOKE – There were 49 combined fouls called (including four technicals on one play), 62 free throws attempted and one hard-fought Crusaders victory captured Friday night, as Marquette Academy’s boys basketball team survived a physical slugfest to win its later-than-usual Tri-County Conference opener, besting host Roanoke-Benson, 58-50.

“I thought we did a good job tonight,” Crusaders coach Todd Hopkins said. “We had a little foul taste with how we played over at [the] Marseilles [Holiday Tournament’s fifth-place game] against Somonauk. That was the stress here tonight: We had to come out and play four quarters hard, and I thought we did tonight.

“We did a good job. I’m proud of the effort, and we’ll move on.”

Tommy Durdan scored a game-high 21 points and added two steals for the Crusaders, who are scheduled to be back in action Tuesday at Newark. Both Carson Zellers and Beau Ewers pitched in eight points for Marquette – the latter before fouling out with 5:19 remaining, one of four players in the game, two for each team, forced to leave with five fouls.

Roanoke-Benson’s Chase Martin tallied a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds before fouling out with 2:58 to play. When he left, he handed the Rockets’ comeback hopes to teammate Joel Weber (20 points, seven rebounds, four assists), as the hosts continued to challenge the Crusaders until the closing seconds but could never quite catch them, trailing the entirety of the second half.

“I thought our energy was the best it’s been all year, and I thought Todd did a great job with his guys as well,” said R-B coach Abe Zeller, whose state-qualifying 2019-20 Rockets team was honored before the opening tip. “There were a ton of fouls on both ends, and neither team shot free throws very well.

“It was a dogfight, and who knows? There might be an opportunity for a rematch in the conference tournament.”

The fouls came early and didn’t stop.

By game’s end, the Crusaders were whistled for 20 of them. That included three of the four technicals called during an odd third-quarter sequence where a Marquette player fell down after contact, was stepped over by a Rockets player and eventually was one of four players given a “T” when the finger-pointing and arguing settled down.

Roanoke-Benson, meanwhile, was hit for 29 fouls, the majority of those the result of either Marquette’s dedication to pounding the ball inside throughout the night or the Rockets’ attempt to come from behind in the closing minutes. Marquette didn’t do as much with those free tosses as Hopkins would’ve wished – going 24 of 42 (57.1%) – but made a dozen of its 20 fourth-quarter tries to hold off a Weber-fueled frenzy as time ticked down.

“We wanted to get the ball in[side],” Hopkins said, “and even when we didn’t pound it into the post, we wanted to get to drive the ball and get the ball in the lane, and I thought we did a good job of that and then getting to the foul line.

“I’m sure we need to shoot better from the foul line, but we did what we had to do in the last three minutes or so to gut it out.”

Brady Ewers – another foul-out victim – and Alex Graham each added five points to the Crusaders’ cause, helping the team improve to 11-3 overall (1-0 in Tri-County Conference competition).

Roanoke-Benson, which has played a brutally hard schedule to open the season, falls to 3-10 (1-1).