Balanced Lakers hold off Portagers
By DYLAN SAVELA, Manistee News Advocate
Sports Writer
Published: Saturday, January 30, 2010
ONEKAMA — Comebacks are only successful if
the team being threatened doesn’t respond.
But, Bear Lake seemed to have all the answers down the stretch Friday
night as Onekama’s final push fell short as the Lakers evened the season
series with the Portagers in a 53-50 win.
“It was one that they wanted,” Lakers coach Scott Brown said of his
team. “I told them if they want any of these games, ‘you’ve got to play
from start to finish.’” Bear Lake (7-6, 6-5 WMD) did just that while
trying to avoid the same fate it suffered earlier this season.
In the two schools’ first meeting on Dec. 11,
Onekama rallied from a 13-point halftime deficit to top the Lakers,
45-42.
The Lakers had a much smaller lead to protect Friday as they started the
fourth quarter with a bucket that put themselves up 37-31.
Onekama’s Katie Prielipp hit two of her three 3-pointers on the night
back-to-back to knot the game at 37-37, but the Lakers’ Ashley Ringel
responded with her own jumper from beyond the arc.
The Portagers (8-4, 8-3 WMD) had to play catch up from that point on,
but Onekama’s Jaylee Brown brought the score within one, 51-50, with
back-to-back buckets in the final minute, and with a Bear Lake turnover
on the ensuing play, the Portagers had possession with a chance to take
a lead at 22 seconds left.
A broken inbound play ended up in the Lakers’ hand, and Ringel was able
to seal the deal with a pair of free throws and snap the Portagers’
three-game winning streak.
“Onekama’s a good team, but I told the girls if we play a full game we
can play with anybody,” Brown said of the win. “Basically what we had to
do down the stretch was what we were doing all game long. When we had
the little lead we had, we just wanted to keep the momentum going in the
right direction, rather than trying to slow ourselves down.” |
The Lakers spread the scoring around as Ringel
led the way with 10 points to go with four assists. Also for Bear Lake,
Sarah Hilliard, Ashley Rupert and Jaimey Ferguson all had nine points,
Sara Babcock had six, Tobi Schoedel had five, Yumi Babinec had three and
Shelby Dansby had two.
Rupert led the Lakers on the boards with 15 while Schoedel had 11 to go
along with five assists.The Portagers
were down most of the game with the exception of the second quarter.
After trailing 16-13 after one, Onekama rallied before halftime to take
a slim 27-26 edge into the break.
The third quarter proved detrimental however, as the Portagers went
scoreless for over six minutes to start the second half, before putting
four points on the board before the fourth quarter in which their final
run fell just short.
“I think we could have used just one more minute at the end,” Portagers
coach Nathan Bradford joked. “We just ran out of time there at the end.”
Onekama’s Sherece Revolt led the way with a game-high 13 points to go
along with four rebounds and five steals while Jennica Mathieu had 12
points and six rebounds, Prielipp had nine points and three steals,
Brown had nine points and five rebounds, Taylor Hagen had five points
and four rebounds and Diamond Kimpel added two points and six rebounds.
“It seemed like Bear Lake had an extra step on us tonight,” Bradford
said. “We played hard, don’t get me wrong, but I give (the Lakers)
credit. They came in here and played really hard.
“We didn’t quit and were right there at the end, but I thought at times
we were holding the ball too much and not attacking the basket,” he
added. “Rebounding hurt us a lot too. We gave them too many offensive
rebounds, but we’re going to continue to work on taking care of the
ball, boxing out, rebounding — all the things we’re in control of.”
The Onekama junior varsity team beat the Lakers, 45-22.
The Portagers were led by Lindsay Nesburg with 18 points followed by
teammates Danielle Ward with 13 and Emily Pomeroy and Nicole Slater each
with six.
The Lakers were led by Briann Bowling with nine points while Breanna
Fink had six and Taylor Anderson added five. |
