Harrington’s 28 points lead Bear Lake past Onekama

Bear Lake’s Hannah Harrington (left) shoots over Onekamas Tawny Kott during Thursday’s game (Dylan Savela/Manistee News Advocate)

ONEKAMA — It was Emileigh Ferguson’s night in Onekama on Thursday, but it was her teammate Hannah Harrington’s game.

While Ferguson, a junior, was honored for hitting 1,000 career points, Harrington scored a game-high 28 with 12 boards en route to the Lakers’ 69-43 West Michigan D League win over the Portagers.

Both coaches agreed: Harrington, who has missed games and playing time so far this season due to a knee injury, made a big difference from the last meeting — a 51-40 Portager win.

“Great team effort in my book,” said Bear Lake coach Scott Brown, “but yes, it was nice having Hannah back.

“She gives us a little bit more size, and court awareness, but we also knew that they’d double Emileigh, so someone would have to be open on the other side.”

Ferguson still chipped in in a big way with 19 points and 15 boards, while Onekama (10-2, 7-2 WMD) was led by just one double-digit scorer in Hailey Kott with 13 points.

“Hannah came back and she hurt us on the block,” Onekama coach Nathan Bradford said. “I know we were keying on Emileigh, but then Hannah would get to the basket.

“It seemed like every time we started to make a run, she’d get a couple baskets for them inside, so I give her a lot of credit. That would take the momentum away. They just beat us up inside.”

Bear Lake (8-4, 5-3 WMD) trailed just twice early, but ended the first quarter up 15-7. Ferguson scored her 1,000th career point with 1.5 seconds left in the first half, with a bucket that put the Lakers up 33-17.

Brown wanted to avoid a second half letdown that doomed Bear Lake on the Dec. 14 meeting.

“The other biggest thing was the last time we played Onekama we were ahead in the first quarter, ahead at halftime, but in the second half we turned over the ball,” he said. “Tonight we took care of the ball. We came down, didn’t force anything, got into a spread and let them come out and get us, while we look for the easy buckets.

“We wanted to be up-tempo, but we wanted to take care of the ball without being sloppy or out of control.”

Onekama finally found spurts of offense in the second half, including a pair of five-point runs in the third, but the Lakers were quick to respond.

“We just had a night where we weren’t making a few shots, and they came out hot right away,” Bradford said. “We just couldn’t make it over the hump.”

The Lakers left little room for a rally in the fourth, pouring in 20 points while holding the opposition to just nine to snap the Portagers’ six-game winning streak.

“We’ve got to learn from this one quick because we’ve got a tough one on Tuesday (at Crossroads),” Bradford said. “That’s why we needed to keep playing hard tonight when we were down: there were a few things we could still work on to build for other games.”

The Bear Lake junior varsity team topped Onekama 40-25 Thursday as Alyson Fink led the way for the Lakers with 12 points while teammate Katelyn Pruyne scored 10. Kaylor DeWitt paced the Portagers with 11 points.

by Dylan Savela, Manistee News Advocate

Visit the News Advocates photo gallery for more photos
of this game by Dylan Savela