SAULT STE. MARIE -- Marquette is going back to familiar territory, preventing Traverse City West from getting to new heights in the process.
The Redmen scored three goals in 2:05 early in the third period to take advantage of a West team reeling from a pair of key injuries earlier in the game.
Mark Nettell, Mike Peterson and John Aho scored in the third for Marquette.
The Titans (19-8) lost starting goaltender Spencer Sonneveldt midway through the first period to a knee injury and top defenseman David Hanrahan didn't return from the first intermission after suffering a concussion.
Sonneveldt stopped all five shots he saw, including a spectacular save while hurting his knee, Titans coach Jeremy Rintala said.
Eric Rivard put West up 1-0 12:35 into the game, but Joey Enright tied it with 30 seconds left in the opening period. Then West got the news that Hanrahan was hurt.
"In the locker room, he didn't know where he was," Rintala said. "Nobody saw the hit."
Nettle put the Redmen up 2-1 in the second before Alex Wietrick scored off a Brian Kelly assist to knot the game back up at 2-2. But Peterson scored on a break-away with 1:32 left for a 3-2 Marquette lead.
Marquette (18-5-3) moves on to face the winner of Hudsonville and Rockford -- two unranked teams -- in quarterfinal action in Big Rapids, aiming to make its sixth appearance in the final four in the past seven years.
Benn Overholt made 22 saves in place of Sonneveldt.
"We had hopes to go further," Rintala said. "Nobody expected us to do too much this year, but we did a lot of good things."
The Titans, who lose only three seniors, were co-Big North Conference champions and were ranked among the top 10 in the state all year.
The Redmen topped West 3-0 in last year's regional final.
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