Lake Leelanau St. Mary girls basketball (5-1) has been off to a streaky start as the first phase of the prep basketball season comes to a close over the next 10 days.
The Eagles will be welcoming St. Francis for a home game on Thursday, December 29 which is expected to be a holiday classic beginning at 1 p.m.
In the meantime, St. Mary has been making light work of several opponents to open the season including wins over Cedarville and GTA in the past week.
The Eagles hit the road and came out with lopsided wins against Mesick 64-12 on Tuesday.
“We’ve really been working on our defense and I think that’s helped us a ton. We get a lot of fast breaks and we like to play the fast game,” St. Mary junior Kyla Barnowski said. “That gets us going pretty easily, especially when we’re struggling from the outside … (Our gameplan) is to get it into Leah (Fleis), and we play a good inside out game, which is fun.”
The Eagles started the game with a slim lead of 13-8 before exploding for the blowout win, allowing only four points in three quarters of the game. Barnowski led the Eagles with 23 points, six rebounds, followed by senior Leah Fleis with 14 points, nine rebounds. Eagle senior Deland Kirt added nine more points and five rebounds while Della Bunek and Muriel Korson combined for 14 points. Barnowski worked over the summer and a slight change to her shot has paid dividends as she is averaging nearly 17 points a game for the Eagles.
This is St. Mary’s best start in recent memory for the Eagles with a 5-1 overall record going into the new year with plenty of momentum.
“We have been playing together since elementary school, so we know where everyone likes the ball and what they like to do with it and where they are going to cut and when … That definitely helps us out a lot and we all get along well,” Barnowski said.
It was a beautiful night of basketball for the Eagles as they dished out 18 assists on the night.
“We’ve changed a lot of things this year. They are still learning a lot. We are playing more manto- man than we’ve played in a long time, and they are embracing it,” St. Mary coach Clint Couturier said. “They are not just good athletes, they are very intelligent, and they pick up things fast … We just got to keep getting better and better because our defense could be really good. That’s the big thing going forward is just to continue to embrace the new defense and work on it and then the ball movement.”
On Saturday, St. Mary traveled to the upper peninsula and dominated Cedarville 72-14.
Fleis led with 18 points, eight rebounds, followed by Kirt with 13 points, 13 rebounds; Kyla Barnowski 13 points, 9 rebounds; Cathryn Mikowski 13 points.
LAKERS WIN TWO IN LAST WEEK
Glen Lake girls basketball (4-2) has had an eventful last couple games of 2023.
The Lakers first squeaked out a 30-29 win over Frankfort last Thursday before defeating Brethren 56-35 on Tuesday.
The Lakers were down 29-28 to the Panthers when Glen Lake senior Eleanor Valkner got a rebound on a missed free throw and made the basket with two seconds left to give Glen Lake the win.
Laker senior Ava Raymond led with nine points, Jessie Pugh eight points, Lydia Fosmore seven points, and Valkner with four points.
PORTAGERS BOUNCE COMETS
Leland girls basketball (3-1) fell for the first time this season in a 44-34 defeat to the Onekama Portagers in the second Northwest Conference game of the season.
“Once we settled in we played much better the rest of the game, but we were just not able to overcome that original deficit to start the game,” Leland coach Ryan Knudsen said. “Even though the end result was not what we wanted, we learned many valuable lessons from this game that will help us the rest of the season.”
The Comets had a slow start to the game going down 3-13 at the end of the first quarter. Leland was able to create offensive opportunities, but not able to convert on those chances and started the game down 10 points quickly.
Once settled in, Leland would play the rest of the game better, but were not able to overcome the original deficit to start the game. The Comets cut the Portagers lead to 29-22, but ran out of steam ultimately.
Leland senior Mallory Low led with 12 points, 7 steals and 6 rebounds, followed by Elli Miller 11 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals; Lorna Wiesen 6 points, 4 rebounds; Ella Knudsen 5 rebounds, 4 assists.
The Comets are off until 2024 when they travel to Buckley on Thursday, January 4 at 7 p.m.
