Marquette’s Sofia van den Ende, left, guards Alpena’s Allie Urlaub during the fourth quarter of their MHSAA Division 1 girls basketball district tournament game played at the Wildcats’ gym on Wednesday. (Alpena News photo by Jonny Zawacki)

ALPENA — There is no question that Alpena’s kryptonite on the basketball court is Marquette.

Wednesday’s 56-31 loss marked the third time in the last five years that the Alpena girls basketball team’s season has ended at the hands of the Redettes.

Despite having the luxury of playing on its home court, Alpena (10-10) was unable to find a rhythm offensively and Marquette (15-7) found ways to score inside and out, putting the Wildcats in an early hole it never got out of.

“We just have to score and we struggled to do that. We had so many missed shots and so many opportunities,” Alpena coach Erin Andrews said. “We knew that we would need one shot or two and limit them to one shot or no shots, but we dug ourselves a hole in the beginning and we just couldn’t get out of it.”

Both teams started slowly and Alpena’s only lead of the night was after the first three minutes when Jade Schultz scored on a layup to put the Wildcats up 3-2. The rest of the night belonged to the Redettes.

Marquette closed the opening quarter on a 12-2 run to go up 14-5.

Kaleah Puskala and Aspen Michelin each hit a 3-pointer in the quarter and combined for 12 of the Redettes’ 14 first-quarter points.

After finding its rhythm, Marquette started pulling away. The Redettes scored eight unanswered points during a four-minute stretch of the second quarter to take a 25-8 lead.

Marquette found success inside and took jump shots from all over the court. It helped the Redettes take a comfortable 33-16 lead into the break after strong play on both ends of the floor.

“In that first quarter, (Marquette) hit two 3s and came right out in the second and hit another one,” Andrews said. “We adjusted our defense to try and take that away and tried to take away their inside, but they made shots and shot a lot of free throws and we definitely did not.

“I told the girls at halftime that we needed to come out and get after it. We needed to knock down some big shots, a couple of 3s and look to score instead of being patient. We just needed some people to step up and just score and not worry about what offense we were running or what we were doing.”

But the shots did not fall for the Wildcats as they only hit one triple on the night, that coming from Allie DeRocher early in the second quarter. DeRocher scored a game-high 14 points.

Marquette continued to fill the cup in the third quarter and extend its lead.

The Redettes ended the third in style as Olivia McMahon hit a long 2 at the buzzer to give Marquette a commanding 46-24 lead.

Alpena emptied its bench midway through the fourth quarter trailing by 20 as the Redettes cruised to a convincing win.

The Redettes featured balanced scoring. Maddie Carter paced Marquette with 12 points and Maria Millado added 11 as the only two Redettes scoring in double figures. Michelin and Puskala each chipped in eight points.