Portagers eke out ‘ugly’ win

Hagen leads Onekama past Pentwater

By DYLAN SAVELA, Manistee News Advocate Sports Writer
Published: Friday, February 5, 2010

ONEKAMA — It was crunch time, and Onekama was running out of players. Fortunately for the Portagers, Pentwater was running out of time.

Three Portagers fouled out during the last two minutes of the contest Friday night, but Onekama fended off a late-game Falcon push to hold on for a 46-41 West Michigan D League win.

“That was ugly,” Portagers coach Nathan Bradford said of the game which was riddled with 52 fouls. “Towards the end, I was looking down at my bench and realized I only had one girl left to put in.

“In the end, we did the things we needed to for the win, but it wasn’t pretty.”

The Portagers (10-4, 9-3 WMD) had to help each other get through the physical play, according to junior Taylor Hagen.

“It was a little rough,” she said. “We just had to keep working hard and not get frustrated with ourselves. Sometimes one of us would get down, and the others kind of had to pick them back up. We just had to stay positive.”

The Portagers trailed Pentwater for the majority of the opening eight minutes before Hagen scored seven straight points heading into the second, to put Onekama up one at 12-11 — a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Hagen finished with a game-high 19 points and 10 rebounds in the face of some special attention from the Falcon defense.

“We had to go into a box-and-1 on (Hagen),” said Pentwater coach Ashley Wojtas. “She dominated the game for the most part. She was kind of their quarterback running the show. The Portagers had plenty of other of contributions along the way as Sherece Revolt had nine points and six rebounds, Diamond Kimpel had eight points and 12 rebounds, Lexi Howard added five points and six boards, Katie Prielipp had three points and four steals, and Jennica Mathieu added two points and five rebounds.

Pentwater (8-8, 6-6 WMD) was led by Whitney James with 13 points and 12 rebounds while Sara Lillie scored 12.

Onekama held the Falcons to just four points in the second quarter, while scoring 11 of its own to make it 23-15 at halftime.  In the second half, free throws became more and more important as both sides made their way to the line often.

“We were forced to play catch up the entire second half, so when we got them in foul trouble in the third quarter, we were trying to drive, force it down low and draw some fouls, which we executed very well, but we just couldn’t convert our free throws,” Wojtas said of her team’s comeback effort. “I think if we made more of those, we could have turned the game.”

The Portagers took a 35-26 lead into the fourth, but the Falcons threatened, cutting the lead to five points thrice and four points once in the final two minutes, during which time Revolt, Mathieu and Kimpel all fell victim to fouling out of the contest.

“The girls were getting a little frustrated,” Bradford said. “I told them to just be strong with the ball, ‘I know it’s getting physical, but we just have to take care of it and do what we need to do to win.’”

The Portagers only needed one field goal in the final quarter to do just that. Converting for nine free throws helped keep the Falcons at bay.

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