Huge first quarter powers Bear Lake past Onekama

by Matt Wenzel, Manistee News Advocate
February 3, 2012

BEAR LAKE — With no football team of its own, basketball season is the obvious choice to hold homecoming at Bear Lake.

And, don’t think the Lakers don’t get a little extra motivation out of all the hoopla.

That showed early as Bear Lake poured in 37 points in the first quarter en route to a 75-41 West Michigan D League win against Onekama on Friday night.

“With homecoming and spirit week, I think it helps us out even more for the game,” said Bear Lake senior Christian Novak. “Even after all the tiring work we do through the week, it helps us get pumped for the game.”

The season-high output for one quarter essentially put the game out of reach early as the Lakers (13-1, 10-0) cruised to their 12th straight win.

“I appreciate Coach (Bryan) Groenwald handling this thing with class, playing a lot of his kids,” said Onekama coach Jim Hunter. “He stayed after us and backed off at the end and I appreciate it.”

Novak led all scorers with 24 points to go with 15 rebounds, Alex Ringel scored 21, Stephen Verrett had 11 and Tyler Groenwald nine with six assists and four steals.

Joe Eno paced the Portagers (1-10, 1-9 WMD) with 12 points while Quinn Matthews had nine and four assists.

 “Quinn Matthews would play on any one of my teams,” Bryan Groenwald said. “The kid’s got guts, he’s got a ton of heart and he’s a credit to their school.”

Bear Lake didn’t jump on Onekama right off the bat and led by just four points at 11-7, just past the midway point of the first. But, the Lakers found their groove quickly and used their press to score in bunches to close the quarter on a 26-6 run over the final 3:30.

At one point, Novak scored nine points in 44 seconds while Ringel followed with a 4-point play.

“That was my worst nightmare,” Hunter said. “I told the kids coming in, that’s the biggest thing we can’t have, is to have three, four, five turnovers right in a row, right in the front of that press. We’re just not at that point yet where we could handle that kind of pressure.”

With a 37-13 lead after the first quarter, the Lakers kept the Portagers at bay the rest of the way and never let the game get closer than 25 points.

“At that point in time, now it’s time to start working on some other things,” Hunter said. “I thought in the latter part of the game … the kids did a little better job. We ran our break, got some buckets off our break, the ball got entered inside a few times, started to press a little bit and worked on that.

“A lot of kids played tonight. If there’s a silver lining to a game like this, it’s that it gives kids an opportunity to get out on the floor and get some minutes. Down the road, hopefully that helps you.”

Even though both teams had their subs on the floor late, the play was still spirited.

“Jim gets them playing hard and you never take it for granted that it’s over,” Bryan Groenwald said. “I thought they kept their intensity up pretty good.”

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