Cougars prove too
much for Onekama
By DYLAN SAVELA, Manistee News
Advocate Sports Writer
ONEKAMA — Onekama was the only
thing standing in the way of Big Rapids Crossroads Charter Academy and
its second consecutive West Michigan D league title Wednesday night.
And after the Cougars’ 61-37
victory over the Portagers, it was theirs — to share.
For the second year in a row, CCA
(16-3, 15-1) and Manistee Catholic Central finished with identical
conference records, making the two squads co-champions.
The only conference loss each of
the schools suffered either season was at the hands of each other.
“We feel pretty good about it, you
know?” Cougars coach J.J. Eads said. “Obviously being a new school in
the conference last year, we didn’t know what to expect. It’s tough
competition, so to share it again with Catholic feels pretty nice.”
The Cougars had three scorers in
double figures.
Jackie Niedzielski led with 12
points, while Casey Seppala had 11 and Chloe Balanda scored 10. Also for
scoring for CCA was Kija Meads and Olivia Schonert with seven points
apiece, Amy Thorne had eight, and Kendra Brooks added four.
Sherece Revolt led the Portagers
(11-8, 10-6) with 11 points and five steals. Also scoring for Onekama
was Katie Prielipp with 10 points, Chelsea Miller had six, Taylor Hagen
and Jennica Mathieu each scored three, while Paige Rutowski and Stacey
Keith added two apiece.
CCA only trailed once, after
Onekama scored the first bucket of the game.
The Portagers kept the game close
in the first quarter.
“I thought we came out pretty
good,” Onekama coach Nathan Bradford said. “We were hustling and got
after them. We had them worried for a bit.”
Eads agreed. “We overcame a
lot of adversity early,” he said. “We were in early foul trouble so we
had to play more zone than we usually like.”
The zone proved to work
throughout the rest of the game. |
Onekama’s Katie Prielipp (5)
tries to drive against CCA’s Jackie Niedzielski during the first
half on Wednesday night. CCA won, 61-37. (Dylan Savela/News
Advocate)
“It was effective,” Eads said.
“We’ve been working on it more and more in the last month. We’re a
pressure defense team, we’ll come at you, we’ll press you, but come
district time you want to be prepared in case they’re calling the game
close.”
The Portagers trailed the
Cougars, 37-19, at halftime, but after struggling to score in the third
quarter, the Portagers dug themselves a hole too big to overcome.
Onekama outscored CCA, 14-6, in
the game’s final quarter but it wasn’t enough to dash the Cougars’ title
hopes.
“We had that drought in the
third,” Bradford said. “But, I was pleased with the way we hustled.
“We’ve had a bunch of tough games
and a bunch of girls got sick (towards the end of the season),” Bradford
added. “We finally have everyone back this week so hopefully we can get
a little momentum going into the districts.” |
