By Greg Gielczyk 
LocalSportsJournal.com 

MANISTEE — Whitehall’s girls basketball team graduated seven seniors last year, including all five starters.

Manistee returns two All-Conference players in the West Michigan Conference Lakes Division. 

But, despite such a disparity in experience, the Vikings kept battling the Mariners all night long. Still, experience ruled the day as Manistee sped to a convincing 63-47 conference win at Manistee Tuesday night. 

“We kept saying, ‘Let’s stretch it, let’s stretch it and make it a little bigger,'” said Manistee coach Kenn Kott. “But they managed to keep coming back. That’s a sign of a team that’s got a lot of heart, and a lot of push in them. I felt the same about our club, because every time it started to get close, we managed to pull out a couple nice shots, maybe a couple good plays. 

“I was really happy the way we executed on defense. Our defense tonight did a pretty good job. More importantly, we were scoring off our defense.” 

And that began right from the start. 

With their defense creating offensive opportunities, the Mariners raced to a 7-0 lead in the first 38 seconds of the game. They would not relinquish the lead the rest of the night. 

Jayna Edmondson, one of those returning all-conference players, started the early explosion when she swooped in for a layup after a steal and in less than the blink of an eye later, she buried a 3-point shot. 

That was followed by another steal and quick layup, this time from the other all-conference returnees in Libby McCarthy, capped the early burst. 

Whitehall managed to shake off that early stomach punch when Lexi Daggett popped in a 3-pointer to draw the Vikings within a 12-7 margin at the close of the first quarter. 

“I think that was the quickest I’ve called a time out in years,” Whitehall coach Brian Milliron said of trying to stem the Manistee surge. “We looked at Edmondson and McCarthy coming in and said, ‘Hey, slow those girls down a little bit and we’ll be alright.’ 

“Looking at the scorebook, we didn’t. Coach Kott has these girls in real good shape. The whole 32 minutes they were still going up and down the floor well. We did better this time in terms of scoring points than what we had previously. It was more good than bad tonight, although the score doesn’t really turn out that way.” 

Edmondson and McCarthy combined for 48 points, with Edmondson knocking down four 3-point baskets and leading all scorers with 28 points. McCarthy added three 3-pointers and had 20 points. 

The Vikings were able to scramble back to trail by only six, 17-11 at the start of the second quarter. Whitehall knocked it back to five, 18-13 after Daggett converted two free throws. 

Manistee hit another spurt and expanded its lead to 10 points, 29-19 later in the quarter. Whitehall answered, though, with a run of its own, Kendall Osborne capping the surge with a 3-pointer and the Vikings were back in the game, trailing by only seven, 29-22 at the half. 

The game got away from the Vikings in the second half, after Manistee ran out to a 20-point lead, 51-31 and Whitehall would get no close than 15 points the rest of the way. 

“Two out of the three games we’ve had the effort piece has been there,” added Milliron. “Execution we still struggle a little bit. We looked like a varsity basketball team tonight. If we can do a little bit more the next game, get to 32 minutes before the end, we’ll be all right.” 

Whitehall was led by Daggett with 18 points and Osborne added 16. 

Manistee (2-1 overall, 2-0 in the conference) travels to Frankfort for a non-conference game next Tuesday. 

Whitehall (0-3 overall, 0-2 WMC Lakes) continues conference play Friday night with a trip to Ludington.