Marquette’s Ian Ogea, left, attempts a shot while Kingsford’s Trevor Roberts, right, blocks on Thursday night, Jan. 5, 2017 at Marquette Senior High School. (Journal photo by Rachel Oakley)

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Redmen jumped out early on Kingsford at home Thursday night, holding off the Flivvers 51-32 for a Great North Conference win.

Marquette opened with a commanding 17-2 run, nine points coming from freshman guard Joe Ostrowsky, who led all scorers with 14 points while adding in eight rebounds.

The Flivvers were held to a single basket in the first quarter, coming from 6-foot-1 Tyler Beauchamp midway through the period.

While the offense was hot early, MSHS head coach Brad Nelson said his team failed to generate offense in the paint toward the end of the first half, hurting their momentum. Still, the Redmen held a commanding 29-9 lead at the break.

“We were pressing early and got turnovers,” Nelson said. “We were shooting well from the perimeter and things were looking good.

“But when you stop shooting well from there, you have to get into the paint, and we started settling instead and we weren’t looking good. You need to penetrate and get to the rim, and we weren’t doing a good job of that.”

Luke Terrian led a modest second-half comeback by the Flivvers, scoring eight of his team’s first 10 points to pull Kingsford within 16.

The young Marquette roster, which includes four sophomores and two freshmen, was faced with a zone defense that slowed them down to just three field goals in the third.

Meanwhile, Terrian hit a triple with less than two minutes left in the quarter to get Kingsford within 38-25, the closest it had been since early in the second period.

Nelson said the challenge was a learning experience for his youthful players, many of whom are in their first varsity season.

“Their zone slowed us down a bit, and it wasn’t something we haven’t faced … yet this season,” Nelson said. “It slowed our game and turned into transition buckets for them. We’ll become familiar with it as the year goes along.”

But the Redmen protected their double-digit lead throughout the final quarter, turning some Kingsford air balls into easy layups at the other end.

Flivvers head coach Dan Olkkonen said the comeback run was too much for his team to overcome against a roster like Marquette’s.

“I was proud with our adjustments and patience on their full-court press,” he said. “The challenging part with us is our ball-handling skills, as we don’t have a lot of true guards and Marquette has a ton.

“We started playing into their run game early, with their traps and heavy pressure, and we resorted back to … toward the end. It left a lot of points off the board for us and was one of the deciding factors.”

Marquette improved to 6-1 with their next game at home next Friday against Gladstone.

Ray Bressette can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 243. His email address is rbressette@miningjournal.net.