Dominant first half lifts Mackinaw City girls past Ellsworth
MACKINAW CITY – The Northern Lakes Conference has been dominated by the Mackinaw City Lady Comets for the last half-decade or so.
But no matter what year it is, the Comets don’t seem to get tired of winning their league.
And with a motivated and hungry senior class hoping to make history this winter, the Comets are looking to deliver a five-peat in the NLC.
Fueled by six double-figure scorers and suffocating pressure defense, the four-time defending NLC champion Comets kept things rolling with an 89-15 home victory over the Ellsworth Lancers on Tuesday.
“They’re very motivated,” said Mackinaw City coach Jake Huffman. “This group of girls – my seniors haven’t lost an NLC game – they’re pretty motivated to keep it that way and want to reach that goal again this year. There will be challenges ahead as we go through the season, and we have a couple teams in the league like (Burt Lake) NMCA who are putting up quite a few points, and so we’re going to have to deal with that. We know they’ve got a couple good shooters, they’ve got some girls that play hard, so we’re going to have to work hard to get our way through here.”
The victory was the 51st consecutive NLC triumph for the Comets (4-0, 2-0 NLC), who didn’t allow a single point and took a commanding 36-0 advantage after one quarter of play. During the quarter, senior Marlie Postula scored 10 points, while fellow senior Larissa Huffman scored eight. Madison Smith and Julia Sullivan, also a part of that terrific Mackinaw City senior class, both chipped in with six in the opening period.
“I think it’s that drive, that drive to succeed, that drive to go out and accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish,” Huffman said of his team’s fast start. “They’ve really tried to impose and dictate what we’re doing, and we’ve worked so hard defensively because it all starts on the defensive side of the ball. When you’re out there and dominating the rebounds – I don’t know what the rebounding margin was tonight – but when we were up in Big Bay (de Noc), they had some good-sized girls and nice athletes, but we outrebounded them, 42-15, and I think we had another really good margin tonight. When you can control the boards and play tough defense and keep girls in front of you, good things happen on the offensive side.”
The Comets continued to play solid basketball in the second quarter, building a 59-2 advantage going into the break. As for the Comets on defense, they didn’t surrender any points until an Ellsworth two-point bucket with 3:15 remaining in the half.
With such a huge lead, the Comets were able to give many of their inexperienced players varsity game action, something Huffman was thrilled to see.
“The biggest thing for tonight was we were looking for execution,” Huffman said. “I have four JV girls that came and sat on the bench with us tonight. All those girls will be varsity players next year, so it was good to get them out here, let them play a quarter and let them get a little taste of varsity basketball.”
Postula had another quality night for the Comets, tallying a game-high 19 points, four rebounds and three steals, while Huffman recorded her second triple-double of the season with 14 points, 11 rebounds, 12 assists and four steals. Sullivan helped out with a double-double, registering 14 points, 13 rebounds and one steal. Smith nearly added a double-double with 14 points, nine boards, one assist and one steal. Gracie Beauchamp finished with 12 points, six assists, six steals and three rebounds, and junior forward Jersey Beauchamp was the sixth Comet to hit double figures with 10 points, while also adding six assists, two steals, one rebound and one block.
“I think (the NLC success) says a lot about this group of girls and how hard they’ve worked, and how hard and how motivated they are to be successful,” Huffman said. “(Former Mackinaw City coach) Adam Stefanski set such a solid base with these girls. They’re a group of girls that are fundamentally sound and adjusted well to a new system and new style of basketball and are very motivated to be successful, and I think that drive is there to finish this season undefeated again, then take a look at districts and see if we can get through a really tough district in what frankly is going to be a really tough regional.
“There’s no easy path this year come tournament time, so we have to be effective every night.”
Others helping out in Mackinaw City’s win included Kerry-Ann Ming (two points, three steals, one rebound), Hanna Hingston (two points, two rebounds, one steal), Kenzlie Currie (two points) and Rian Esper (one rebound, one assist, one steal).
Huffman also praised the support of the Mackinaw City student section, which had plenty of Christmas songs to sing throughout Tuesday’s contest.
“Our student section is awesome,” Huffman said. “They serenaded us there for a while with some Christmas tunes and did a great job.”
Nora Puroll led Ellsworth with five points. Avery Strange and Samantha Paalman each netted four.
Mackinaw City will be off until Tuesday, Dec. 20, when it hosts Manistique in its first Christmas tournament game at 7 p.m. Before that matchup, Inland Lakes will face Brimley in a 5:30 p.m. clash. The winners will meet in the championship game on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
In junior varsity action, Mackinaw City picked up a 59-33 victory over Ellsworth.
Kenzlie Currie led the Comets with 15 points, while Hanna Ming had 12, Rian Esper and Abby Brown each tallied 11, and Kerry Ann-Ming scored 10.
This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Dominant first half lifts Mackinaw City girls past Ellsworth
