District Game 1: Ferguson leads Lakers past Portagers
By MATT WENZEL
Manistee News Advocate Sports Editor
Published:
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
ONEKAMA — Emileigh Ferguson was
admittedly nervous heading into her first district game. But, the
jitters didn’t last long for the Bear Lake freshman.
Ferguson scored a game-high 24 points to go with seven rebounds and
three blocks to lead the Lakers to a 49-35 win against Onekama in a
Class D district quarterfinal at Onekama Monday night.
“As a freshman, it’s always nerve-wracking going into a district
game,” she said. How long did the nerves stick around? "Three
minutes into it," she said with a laugh. With Bear Lake (15-6)
unable to capitalize on it's outside shooting, Ferguson dominated in
the paint and by the time she tossed in a lay-up with time expiring,
the Lakers had earned a berth in a semifinal Wednesday against
Frankfort.“We didn’t hit
hardly any outside shots, if any, tonight,” said Bear Lake coach
Scott Brown. “I think a lot of that is attributed to the jitters —
first night of districts the girls were quite rattled. Emileigh is
coming on strong. I’m very proud of her. She played very tough
tonight.”
The Lakers went into the game with a plan to keep Onekama’s Taylor
Hagen and Jennica Mathieu in check and were pleased with the
results. Mathieu scored eight while Hagen, who was saddled with foul
trouble all night, managed just four.
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“We knew we had to shut down Taylor,
we had to shut down Jennica — that was our main goal tonight to minimize
them,” Brown said. “We had a game plan coming in. We knew what we had to
do and pretty much stuck with it the whole game.”
That goal was hardly a surprise to Onekama coach Nathan Bradford.
“I know they were keying on Taylor and I told the other girls we’re
going to need other people to step up and make shots,” he said. “We got
good shots, just tonight they didn’t fall.”
Nicole Slater had eight points for Onekama (9-10), Danielle Ward scored
seven to go with 14 rebounds, Lindsay Nesburg scored six and Kelly Koon
had two.
Bear Lake’s Sarah Hilliard scored the first three points of the game and
the Lakers held a 10-8 lead after the first quarter.
Hilliard finished the game with four points and five assists, Hannah
Harrington scored eight, Jaimey Ferguson had six points, 10 rebounds and
five assists, Tobi Schoedel had five points and 12 rebounds while Yumi
Babinec and Breanna Fink scored one apiece.
Despite Hagen picking up her third foul midway through the second
quarter, the Portagers scored the final four points of the first half to
pull within six at 20-14. Bear Lake, which finished with 23 turnovers,
led by six after the third quarter as well at 30-24, before putting the
game away in the fourth.
Ferguson scored half of her 24 points in the final eight minutes,
including eight straight as the Lakers opened up a double-digit lead en
route to their third win of the season against the Portagers after
beating Onekama by a combined three points in two previous meetings. |
