Griffins Rout Marquette – Win Program’s Second Gateway Metro Conference Title

GLEN CARBON – The task at hand on Thursday night at Father McGivney High School was simple.

The Griffins needed to beat their Gateway Metro Conference rivals Marquette Catholic to win the conference title outright. If The Explorers won, they’d split the prize.

That didn’t happen as the Griffins led wire-to-wire in a dominant 53-24 win, improving to 23-6 on the season, and more importantly 8-0 in the GMC.

“That was one of the goals coming into the season,” Father McGivney head coach Jeff Oller said. “We knew it was going to be a tough game coming in, stretched it there in the third, but the first half was a battle which we expected.”

McGivney started the game on a 9-0 blast before Marquette flipped a switch and closed the quarter on a 7-2 run, all seven points being scored by Laila Davis, which made it 11-7 McGivney after one.

The Explorers got it to within one at 16-15 but never tied the game up or took the lead. The Griffins held a narrow four-point lead at halftime, 21-17.

The second half was wildly different.

Marquette was held to just two field goals in the second half, being outscored 32-7. That included a 14-point run run by McGivney to close the third quarter and take a commanding 39-20 lead.

Twelve of those points came from four threes, two from Elle Willenborg and one apiece from Alexa Jones and Peyton Ellis.

“It’s really disheartening when you go into a game down four at half, and then just not show up in the second half,” Marquette head coach Whitney Sykes-Rogers said. “Of all the seniors we have, that’s just disappointing. And [McGivney] started hitting shots, got to give some credit to them, it wasn’t all us, but we still have to have more effort than that. All we can do is move on. We can’t dwell on it.”

Marquette falls to 16-11 on the season and 7-1 in the GMC. Davis led the Explorers with nine points and Allie Weiner had eight.

“The girls just came out with a lot of energy,” Oller said regarding the second half. “I think it was more defensive based, and when our defense gets going, shots start falling, we start executing really well. But a great job defensively and rebounding which was a big key coming into this one.”

Jones netted a career-high 18 points in the win, shooting 7-13 from the field with a couple of threes. Her previous scoring high was earlier this season against Christ Our Rock when she scored 17.

Zoe Oller and Layla Tobin each added 11 points, Willenborg had eight, and Ellis had five.

Marquette has one final regular-season game remaining while McGivney has two.

Both teams will be in the IHSA Class 2A Virden (North Mac) Sectional with regionals being played at Litchfield and Roxana. Those sectional brackets will be released on Friday, February 6 at 4 p.m.

The seedings have already been released, and in their first season bumped up to Class 2A, the Griffins earned the number one seed. The Explorers are a three seed.

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