Each team hit 16 apiece in all from the line, but the Portagers had the edge in percentage by going 16-for-27 to the Sabers’ 16-for-35.

“That’s not a good grand total” Sabers coach Todd Erickson said of his team’s percentage at the line. “It would have been nice to make a couple more, but we had other opportunities too.

“A lot of times I thought instead of taking a lay-ups, we shot a jump shot, and instead of just taking a jump shot, we were trying to force some lay-ups.

“But it’s coming,” he added. “We keep getting good minutes from everybody. Last time we played (Onekama), we lost by 17. Tonight we came up here and it was down to the wire, so that shows we’ve improved a lot since that first game.”

The Sabers (5-5, 5-4 WMD) were led by Danielle Edmondson with 14 points while Alex Barnett scored nine, Haley Doyle had eight, Jordan Barnett had four, Mimi Modjeski scored two and Molly Howard, Brooke Etheridge, and Jennifer Alway all had one apiece.

Doyle led MCC on the boards with nine while Edmondson and Jordan Barnett each had six. Etheridge had six steals while Alex Barnett and Doyle had four apiece.

For the Portagers, Revolt led with 17 points, while Taylor Hagen and Jennica Mathieu each had seven, Lexi Howard scored four, Jaylee Brown scored three and  Katie Prielipp and Diamond Kimpel had two apiece. Hagen had seven rebounds and five steals while Mathieu added six boards.

The Sabers were the first to pounce as they jumped out to an early 10-6 lead after the first quarter and with the first bucket in the second, MCC held its biggest lead of the night.

“It took us a little while to get going,” Onekama coach Nathan Bradford said of the first eight minutes. “MCC did a nice job working the ball around the top and I told the girls we needed to play a bit better defense.