Offensive woes sink
Portagers
By
DYLAN SAVELA, Manistee News Advocate
Sports Writer
Published:
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
ONEKAMA —
Onekama can dissect Tuesday’s loss
to Mesick in two ways.
“Good
defense, bad offense,” coach Roger
Smith said after his Portagers lost
43-21 to the Bulldogs. “We hustled
on the defensive end, which is what
we usually do.
“We held them to under 50 points, so
that’s good. I can live with that,”
he added. “But 21 points? I don’t
understand it. Lately, we’ve just
had a lot of trouble shooting. We
couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn
tonight, and offensively, that had
to be the worst game we’ve had all
year long.”
Only three Portagers put points on
the board as senior Joe Kosiboski
led the way with game-high 13.
“We can’t
rely on Joe every night to win ball
games,” Smith said. “We’ve got to
step up and score and we’re just not
doing it. We had some good shots,
but they just weren’t going in.
There was a lid on it.”
Jake Matthews and Matt Monroe scored
four apiece while Kosiboski and
Skyler Kimpel each grabbed four
rebounds.
A balanced Mesick attack was led by
junior Caleb Robinson with 12
points.
“At the varsity level, we generally
like to try to keep a team to 50 to
55 points and we obviously did that
tonight,” Bulldogs coach Jason
Stewart said. “We had a very good
defensive effort tonight. I think we
did a pretty good job mixing it up
and keeping them off balanced.”
Onekama’s half court trap caused the
Mesick offense to struggle early
too, as the first quarter ended with
a 6-5 Bulldog advantage.
Kosiboski added to the three points
he scored in the opening quarter
with all seven of the Portagers’
points in the second, while Mesick
started to find more looks to take a
19-12 mark into the break.
The Bulldogs (6-9) seemed to be
clicking to start the game’s latter
half as they opened the third
quarter with 10 straight points and
eventually took a 31-17 lead into
the final eight minutes.
“We’ve ran into trouble like that a
lot, where we start off a little
impatient and try to do a little too
much as individuals,” Stewart said
of the Bulldogs’ first half
performance. “So, we kind of had to
refocus and got good spacing on the
floor and moved the ball around. |
Onekama’s Matt Monroe
elevates for a shot in front of Mesick’s Curtis Brown during the
second half of Tuesday night’s game. (Dylan Savela/News Advocate)
“Things started to open up once we shared
the basketball. We got some easier looks.”
Matthews opened the final quarter with a bucket for Onekama while
Kosiboski scored two minutes later, but the Portagers (3-11) went
scoreless the last five minutes while Mesick closed out its victory.
“We’ve got to try and stay positive,” Smith said. “I think this was a
winnable game when we’re only giving up 43, but you’re never going to
win when you score 21.
“We’ve just got to start finding a way to put the ball in the basket.”
The Onekama junior varsity team topped Mesick 68-51 while four Portagers
scored in double figures. Bryce Reckow led Onekama with 16 points while
Quinn Matthews scored 15, Joe Eno had 13, and Tanner Kott scored 12. |
