Marshall guard Bri Simpson dribbles down the court on a fast break while chased by a pair of Becker defenders in the Tigers' 52-43 loss in the Class AAA quarterfinals at the Maturi Pavilion Wednesday morning

MINNEAPOLIS — The Marshall girls basketball team couldn’t match top-seeded Becker’s firepower in the Tigers’ 52-43 loss in the Class AAA quarterfinals at Maturi Pavilion Wednesday morning.

Bri Simpson carried the bulk of the Marshall scoring load in both halves of the game. She scored the game’s opening bucket, a 3-pointer, two minutes into the first half and opened the second half with 4 points in the first three minutes. She finished the game with 22 points on 8-21 shooting.

Becker’s three high-scoring guards present opposing defenses with a challenging lineup to defend. Marshall was able to make things difficult for the Bulldogs and only allowed one opposing player to score more than 10 points. Yet, that one player was Maren Westin, who scored 27 points for Becker while shooting a perfect 5-5 from 3-point range.

“She just took over,” Westby said of Westin’s performance. “She had a couple of deep threes, those were kind of backbreakers at that point. We were scratching our way back and she would just do that and then we were just deflated for a few seconds.”

At halftime, Westin’s 17 points tied Marshall’s team total, leading the Bulldogs to a 26-17 advantage.

Becker is a team that tries to control the tempo of the game, and while the Tigers attempted to slow them down, particularly in the second half, it wasn’t enough to get Marshall any momentum.

“[Simpson and Westby] had talked [about slowing down the tempo] and she wasn’t in favor of it,” Westby said. “We get a rebound, we’re going to walk the ball up and make sure we have a good, clean possession. We don’t want to turn the ball over against this team. We didn’t want to get going faster than it should. She finally bought in after the second practice, but its tough to get her reined in.

“Boy, they’re an awfully good team. They’re number one for a reason. Very dynamic players and thought they made a good adjustment at halftime of sneaking that post kid in between our help defense.”

Turnovers were the difference in the game. Marshall has been a team that’s been able to make its opponents uncomfortable on defense all season, but Becker upped the ante in the quarterfinal matchup. The Bulldogs held a 9-15 advantage in the turnover battle. While they didn’t convert as often as they could have, six extra possessions can be the difference in a postseason game.

The Tigers struggled to find scoring options outside of Simpson in the first half. At the break, she was the only Tiger with more than 3 points. In the second half, however, Randi Wendorff stepped up and finished with 11 points for the Tigers. Still, no other Tigers finished with more than 3 points.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of chinks in their armor, but one of the things we wanted to do was get some mismatches. We did a number of dribble handoff plays and that sort of thing. They were switching screens and switching handoffs. So we were just looking for mismatches and I thought we got a few more of those in the second half,” Westby said.

Both teams played tight defense throughout the game, but looked particularly gritty in the first half. Through five minutes, each team had made one field goal.

Marshall limited the Bulldogs’ second-chance opportunities early and was able to consistently finish off possessions on the defensive end. Yet, as the half progressed, they looked more fatigued and the increased opportunities for second-chance points allowed Becker to extend its lead.

After the break, however, the Tigers returned to form on the defensive end. They finished with a 10-8 advantage in second-chance points, although Becker got its second-chance points off seven offensive rebounds while Marshall scored its 10 on 13.

Leah Jones and Simpson led the Marshall rebounding effort, grabbing seven boards apiece. They trailed only Westin’s eight.

Reese Graven led Marshall in assists, dishing out four on the night, while Simpson was second on the team with three.

Marshall kept pace with Becker in the second half, with both teams scoring 26 points apiece, but the Tigers Couldn’t cut into the Bulldogs lead. They never trailed by more than 13, but also never came within 8 points after the break.

Marshall sits at 21-20 as it heads to the consolation later today at 2 p.m. when they compete against No. 5 Grand Rapids in the Gangelhoff Center.

“I told our kids in the locker room afterwards, ‘you guys did what you need to do. Now we’ve got to move on. You’ve got a couple hours for this to sink in a little bit and then we’ve got to get ready to go tomorrow.’ We’ve got to get something out of this tournament,” Westby said.

Becker (26-3) will face the winner of No. 4 Stewartville and No. 5 Grand Rapids in the semifinals Thursday at noon.