Sabers pull
away from Portagers
by Dylan
Savela, Manistee News Advocate
January 25, 2012
MANISTEE — Zack Bialik set an apropos
tone Wednesday with just two shots.
The Manistee Catholic Central junior
scored his team’s first six points with a pair of triples,
and there were plenty more to come en route to an 81-64 West
Michigan D League win over Onekama.
Bialik, who finished with 34 points,
knocked down 7-of-10 shots from beyond the arc while his
team finished 10-of-13 from long range. Onekama, whose
resilient effort felt closer than the final score suggests,
knocked down five 3s of its own. But ultimately, the
Portagers (1-6, 1-6 WMD) were unable to consistently match
the offensive output from the hot-shooting Sabers.
“We had some good looks,” said MCC
coach Dale Edmondson Jr., whose team was 32-of-55 from the
field in all. “Ten-for-13 from (3-point range), I’ll take
that any night.”
Bialik wasn’t the only Saber to fill
the stat book, either. MCC’s Ben Feliczak scored 20 points
with eight rebounds and four assists while Alex Hogan was
heavily involved in the offense, drilling 3-of-3 from beyond
the arc en route to 15 points while dishing out 14 assists.
The county rivals tied six times in
the first half, as MCC ended each frame on top, leading
22-17 after one and 40-30 at the half.
Despite trailing the rest of the way,
the Portagers kept within striking distance, continuing to
close the gap to single digits until three minutes
remaining, when MCC (8-3, 7-1 WMD) was finally able to build
up to a substantial advantage.
“I’m very proud of the kids tonight,”
said Onekama coach Jim Hunter. “We played hard to stay right
in there. They’d separate a bit — go up 12, 13 — but then
we’d bring it back down. We had it tied in the first half
several times, but at the end, we had to start gambling.
They’re a good team. At that point in time, it was just time
to make a push.”
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Onekama has only one win to its name thus far, but
Hunter hopes the effort Wednesday night can be used as momentum heading
in to the home stretch of the season. “It
remains to be seen (if this is a step forward),” he said. “We’ll break
down the tape, and see what worked and what didn’t in order to see how
to take that next step, which, for us right now, is to be able to beat
good teams.”
Onekama was led by Kyle Acker who scored 21 points
while teammates Drew Slevin scored 16 and Quinn Matthews had 15 points,
five assists and four steals. Hunter, however, was most impressed with
the Portagers’ ability to handle MCC’s early full-court pressure.
“They tried to press us, and I thought we busted
it pretty good,” he said. “We were trading buckets for a while, because
we just weren’t able to get stops.
“And what hurt us, which is the same thing that’s
been hurting us all year, is there were spots where we got a little
timid offensively,” he added. “The pressure got a little too much,
maybe, and there’s no room for being timid. It’s a matter of getting
past that, and the only way we can is to see more of what we saw most of
tonight. We saw that our press break can work and tonight was probably
the most successful we’ve been with it.”
Edmondson tipped his cap to the Portagers, and
said for his team, which has now won four straight, the focus is on the
defensive end.
“We couldn’t put Onekama away all night long,
which is a credit to Jim (Hunter) and his group of kids,” he said. “They
worked hard and never quit. We’d get up, then next thing you know they
were right back in it. They played hard right to the very end.
“For us, we played well offensively,” he added.
“But the thing we keep talking about is we have to play better on
defense. This is the second time we’ve had a team score in the 60s, so
we feel we can play better defense than that and hopefully that’s what
we’ll keep striving to do.
“But a win’s a win, and especially in conference,
we’ll take it.” |