Onekama senior Bryce Reckow pulls up for a jumper during Wednesday’s district semifinal win against Mesick. (Dylan Savela/News Advocate

MESICK — Like they did in a quarterfinal win on Monday, the Portagers were patient in picking when to press Wednesday night against Mesick.

After a knotted first quarter, and just a six-point lead by the break, Onekama extended its defense baseline to baseline down the stretch and the result was a 72-55 Class D district semifinal win over the tournament hosts.

The win sends the Portagers to Friday’s 7 p.m. district final against Frankfort, the winner over Bear Lake in the other semifinal.

“We struggled at first,” Onekama coach Jim Hunter said of Wednesday’s win. “They were trying to control the tempo of the game, and they were winning that battle.

“We like it up tempo, but they stayed very patient, taking a lot of time off the clock, getting shots and second shots, which kills us when we want to speed it up,” he added. “I thought in the second half, when we pressed, it helped us get running and dictate the tempo a bit.”

It took a while, but the Portagers ran, and ran away. Leading the charge was senior guard Bryce Reckow who scored 26 points with seven rebounds, five assists, and three steals. Quinn Matthews added 17 points and four steals and Derek Hobart scored 13 with six boards.

“Bryce will do his thing,” Hunter said, “but when Quinn and Derek and Jarett (Sovereign), on most nights, are scoring, it makes it awful tough on teams defensively.”

The Bulldogs found that out late, despite a solid individual effort from guard Thane Herbert who scored a game-high 27.

In Mesick’s early pace, the teams scored 10 apiece in the first quarter, and despite Hobart’s back-to-back triples early in the second to put his team up nine, the Bulldogs battled back to close the gap to 26-20 by the break.

“We had to stay after it,” Hunter said. “We talked to the kids coming into this. We were in their position before: you’re the home team of the districts, you haven’t had a good year, and you have a chance at some redemption, so you come out and play hard.

“And Mesick did that. They played very, very hard.”

The Portagers’ pressure affected Mesick in the third as turnovers near midcourt proved costly.

“They struggled with our press a bit, and for different reasons than (Forest Area did) on Monday,” Hunter said. “(Mesick) got past the front end, but we were able to get some turnovers in what we call second trap situations.

“There were 10 possessions straight where we ended up with the ball on seven of them,” he added. “We gave up a few buckets in there, but I’ll give you a couple buckets if you give us the ball seven times.”

Still, Onekama held just a 45-35 lead heading into the fourth, where it would start to pull away.

Reckow scored 11 points in the final eight minutes, and the Bulldogs didn’t help their comeback chances by getting mouthy with officials and picking up a pair of technical fouls within a minute of each other as Onekama ballooned the cushion.

The Portagers were sent to the line often in the final three minutes, and converted what they needed to punch their ticket to Friday’s district title game.

“We’ve still got some things we need to work on and talk about,” Hunter said of avenging a 65-60 loss to Frankfort in the regular season, “and we’ve got just one day to do it.”

Posted by Dylan Savela, Manistee News Advocate on-line
March 6, 2013

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photos from this story taken by Savela.