Marquette senior John Thomson, top right, shoots while Petoskey’s Ronta Moore, right, defends and Northmen senior Gabriel Whitmore looks on during their MHSAA Division 1 district game at Marquette’s Barb Crill Gymnasium on Monday night. (Photo courtesy Nathan Larsh)

MARQUETTE — When Marquette met Petoskey on Dec. 14, it didn’t yet know it would square off with the Northmen again nearly three months later in the opening round of the districts.

The Redmen narrowly won that regular-season contest by three points, meaning Monday night’s tourney game was expected to be a battle once again.

Marquette had other plans, however, using its up-tempo offense to gain an early advantage and put the Northmen in its rearview mirror for the remainder of the evening, winning 82-70 to open the MHSAA Division 1 district tournament at MSHS’ Barb Crill Gymnasium.

With the win, the Redmen (18-3) bumped their win streak to 11 games and will host Gaylord (3-17) in the semifinals at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The Blue Devils played at home against Marquette less than two weeks ago with MSHS picking up a 77-42 victory to end its regular season.

Marquette head coach Brad Nelson said that it’ll be nice to face a team they’ve seen recently, but knows they can’t overlook anyone in the postseason.

“I’m expecting them to throw everything at us,” he said. “They played man-to-man primarily during the entire game down there. They’ve ran a 1-2-2, I’ve seen a 2-3 zone, we’ve got to be prepared for it.

“We’ve prepared for those things throughout the season, so now we just have to dig back into the memory bank and go over some stuff just to be prepared for it. Hopefully we can push the pace of the game and get some easy transition buckets.

“The next game is 100 percent Gaylord. I don’t care what the score was the first time, anything can happen.”

As for Monday night, Nelson said what changed since the early-season tilt with Petoskey was that both teams had a better idea of who they were.

“That was only the second game of the year when we played (Petoskey),” he said. “Both teams, early in the season, at that point we were just trying to figure out our identities and what roles everyone had.

“To go down there and grind out a three-point win, that told me at the beginning of the year how good we can be, and (tonight) was a product of the performance that these kids put in.”

The Northmen didn’t go down without a fight, receiving 18 points from sophomore J.J. Marshall and 16 from senior Gabriel Whitmore. Petoskey could never seem to cut the deficit down to single digits, however, trailing by 12 to 16 points for most of the night.

“That’s a good Marquette team, they’re well coached and I’ve known Brad (Nelson) for a long time,” Petoskey head coach John Flynn said. “They were tough on their home court, and as the season went on, they just kept getting better and better. We knew they’d be tough and they proved it (tonight).

“They made shots, they made plays, and it just felt like right from the tip that we were always kind of one step behind and one step reacting. Hopefully our younger guys can learn from it.

“You can tell some of (Marquette’s) guys have put in time in the offseason, and that’s what it all comes down to. They’re a solid team and I hope they make a good long run.”

Marquette was paced by junior duo of Ty Lotterman and Kam Karp, who combined for 43 points. Lotterman led the way with 23 as Karp had 20. Fellow junior Lincoln Sager added 17 while senior John Thomson had 11.

The Redmen led 24-15 after one quarter and put up another 20 points in the second quarter to go up 44-32 at the half.

Thomson split a pair of free throws to open the third quarter before Sager pulled up for his second of three triples on the night to quickly put MSHS up 16 points at 48-32.

Marquette led by 14 after three quarters, 63-49, and the Northmen never cut the margin to less than 12.

MSHS was 25 of 58 from the field for 43 percent and made a whopping 24 of 33 free throws. Petoskey also exceeded the 70 percent mark at the stripe, going 15 of 21.

Thomson finished with seven of Marquette’s 28 rebounds. Shooting and rebounding statistics for Petoskey weren’t available after the game.

Senior Nathaniel Eberly-Rodriguez chipped in 11 points for the Northmen.

Email Ryan Spitza at sports@miningjournal.net.