Todd Rose | Daily Press Gladstone’s Elliott Vitito (center) takes a shot as Marquette’s Jordan Demay (5) and Wyatt Lakenen (right) look on Tuesday in Gladstone.

GLADSTONE — Despite a 30-point fourth quarter from the Gladstone Braves (3-9), the Marquette Redmen (5-6) earned a 59-47 win over the hometown Braves Tuesday night in Gladstone.

A tight first half ended with the teams separated by four points, 21-17, with Marquette on top. It was the third quarter, though, where Marquette blew things open scoring an unanswered 17 points to go up 38-17.

“I thought there was a few things we did defensively we did poorly in the first half,” said Marquette coach Brad Nelson. “We were letting them get too deep into our defense. We were gambling a bit, poking at the ball. All things we addressed last week but, apparently, we forgot them over the weekend. But, I thought in the third quarter we did those things much better.”

David Eberhard (17) and Jonas Bicik (16) led the Redmen in scoring in the win with six other Marquette players getting a chance to score as well.

While the Braves put up 30 in the final quarter, they only outscored Marquette by nine as the Redmen put up 21 themselves to keep the game within their grasp.

Nelson commented that he was just pleased to leave the Gladstone gym with the win.

“Definitely things we have to get better at,” he said. “Happy to get out of here with a win. This is a goofy place to play, always has been. So, we’ll take the win and get ready for the rest of the week.”

Leading the Braves’ offensive efforts were the pair of Kaden Gibbs and Elliot Vitito who combined for 24 of the Braves 47 points with 12 each.

Braves coach Colin Immel said postgame that it was the best offensive game the team had played thus far this season. As far as the scoreless third quarter goes, he’s not really sure what happened.

“I don’t know (what happened). I don’t know,” Immel said. “We had a really good first half going into halftime down four. We weren’t hitting our shots, our shots weren’t falling. We were getting good really, really, really good looks. They just weren’t falling.

“The third quarter, I honestly have no clue (what the difference was). I don’t know. It was like a night and day difference then all the sudden fourth quarter we pick it up again and we scored 30. It’s like, what’s going on here?”

As the regular season begins to wind down, Immel is pleased with how far his team has come from day one as their comfort level of playing with each other continues to grow.

“I think they’re finally starting to gel,” he said. “We’ve got sophomores playing juniors, juniors (playing with seniors), and they’ve never played with each other before. Our inexperience is always going to be there, it’s always going to be our Achilles’ Heel as I’ve always said.

“But, they’re starting to gel together, and it’s really good to see.”

Also scoring for the Braves were John Roman (8) who hit a pair of big threes in the fourth, Drake Johnson (7) who did a nice job rebounding and earning some points because of it, Caden Downey (5) with a three and two free throws in the fourth and Payton Gingras with three on the night.

Both teams are back in action today hosting games in their respective gyms.

The Redmen play the Escanaba Eskymos in Marquette while the Braves battle the Flivvers of Kingsford in Gladstone.

Marquette 10 11 17 21 — 59

Gladstone 12 5 0 30 — 47

Marquette — Eberhard 17, Bicik 16, De May 6, Quinnell 6, Weber 3, Vermaat 3, Jurmu 3, Peterson 3; FT: 13-18; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Weber, Jurmu.

Gladstone — Gibbs 12, Vitito 12, Roman 8, Johnson 7, Downey 5, Gingras 3; FT: 12-18; Fouled out: None; 3-point field goals: Roman 2, Vitito 2, Downey.