Dow Girls Advance to Regional Final

By Blake Froling

Dow made its annual pilgrimage to Gaylord High School on Tuesday night and beat Marquette 63-54 in the girls Regional Semifinal.

In last year’s matchup with Marquette, Molly Davis scored 26 of Dow’s 49 points. This year’s edition saw a much more balanced scoring attack led by Alexa Kolnitys, Jada Garner and Abby Rey, who each scored 14 points.

Marquette jumped ahead 15-14 after the first quarter after picking up the pace and controlling the paint. It quickly became a battle of sophomores between Rey and Marquette’s Maria Millado. Rey knocked down three triples in the first half and Millado scored 15 points in the first two quarters. The score was tied at 32 at halftime. 

Similar to last year, as soon as Dow began to apply their full-court pressure, the lead began to grow. Kolnitys was the defensive catalyst for Dow, deflecting a number of passes and opening up easy scoring opportunities. Dow outscored Marquette 21-12 in the third quarter.

Thanks to the patient offense of Dow, Marquette could never get the lead down closer than eight points in crunch time. 

Marquette has now lost in the Regional Semifinal for six years in a row, with three losses to Dow and three to Heritage.

Dow (20-3) will play Davison (17-7) in the Regional Final on Thursday at 6:30 PM at Mount Pleasant. Dow beat Davison 47-35 in December in Midland.