By Greg Gielczyk
LocalSportsJournal.com

MANISTEE — Down by six late in the fourth quarter, the Montague girls’ basketball team went on a 9-0 run and pulled out a thrilling 36-33 victory over host Manistee Thursday night in a West Michigan Conference Lakes Division game.

It avenged a one-point loss, 44-43, the Wildcats suffered at the hands of the Mariners in January and extended their current winning streak to three straight games.

“We wanted it more this time because they beat us by one at our place,” said Montague coach Jess DeBruin. “We don’t handle ball pressure too well, but we handled it better this time than last time.

“I think our defense is great. That’s one thing we’re strong in is defense. Defense wins games. We don’t really make too many shots, but we make them when they count,” DeBruin said.

And the Wildcats needed their shots to fall in the fourth quarter after the Mariners had opened a 33-27 lead with under three minutes left.

Manistee had only one 3-point make in the game, and that came from Avamae Fett during that stretch. The run also included a floater put-in by Lindsey Gardner.

But then the Wildcats’ pressure defense, which had bothered the Mariners all game, forced some critical turnovers which they converted into points.

Addison Pranger scored four points in the Wildcats’ finishing burst and Amanda Cederquist went down the baseline for a lay-in to put them ahead for good.

“The girls play hard all the time and they do everything they can to win the games, but we do a lot of things sometimes to put ourselves in a position to let things one way or another and it doesn’t go our way,” said Manistee coach Kenn Kott. “You never want to be in that position to have that happen and that’s what happened tonight. It’s another thing that we have to learn from. We do our best to tell the kids to try and stay on the floor, and stay out of foul trouble, or make good passes or whatever they need to do.”

Montague gained a slim 16-15 lead at the half, and it was still a one-point difference, 25-24, after three.

Pranger led all scorers with 15 points for the Wildcats. Adilynn Peterson had six and Maizie Collins added five.

Jayna Edmondson scored 11 points and had seven rebounds for the Mariners and McCarthy added nine points. Alayna Edmondson came away with three steals.

Montague improved its record to 6-12 overall, 4-6 in the conference. The Wildcats travel to Shelby by a conference crossover game with the Tigers on Monday.

The Mariners slipped to 7-10 overall, 5-5 in the conference. Manistee has a conference crossover game Monday night at Holton.

Photos by Greg Gielczyk