Lake Leelanau St. Mary girls basketball (14-1) defeated St. Ignace (12-4) on the road Tuesday night 53-45.
“It was a game of runs,” St. Mary coach Clint Couturier said.
The No. 2 ranked Eagles in Division 4 girls’ basketball moves on to a downstate trip this weekend against Ottawa Lake and Bedford on Friday and Saturday.
St. Mary junior Kyla Barnowski ended up with 13 points and 11 rebounds.
“They pressed us so we tried to just run the ball as fast as we could on the court and play faster than they could handle us,” Barnowski said.
The Eagles started in a 1-2-2 press and eventually had to drop in a 2-3 zone to deal with the size of the No. 15-ranked St. Ignace team.
St. Mary junior Muriel Korson provided stout defense and offense with 12 points.
“We found out that we can really push through anything and even though we traveled so far we can do it if we put our mind to it,” Korson said.
St. Mary went into halftime up 22-21 in a nip and tuck ball game.
In the third quarter, St. Mary held St. Ignace to seven points, and scored 15 points offensively, which proved to be the difference in the game (44-29). The Eagles were able to hold off a fourth quarter St. Ignace storm when the Saints caught fire from the 3-point line and scored 16 points in the fourth quarter. St. Mary kept the door open by missing free throws that allowed St. Ignace to crawl back into the game.
St. Mary junior Cathryn Mikowski chipped in 10 points to round out the offensive performance for the Eagles.
“Coach always tells us to control what we can control and for us that’s our defense,” Mikowski said. “We’re really good at being scrappy and making them have to play to our level. When we get to these bigger downstate teams, our goal will be to play together, work together, get the ball moving and to just lock down on our defense.”
