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Still perfect

Gremlins use big second half to beat Bulldogs

HANCOCK — For 16 minutes Monday evening, the Hancock Bulldogs girls basketball team took advantage of their home court and some severely cold shooting by the Houghton Gremlins to head into the second half only down three, 14-11.

That was as close as the Bulldogs would get, however. The Gremlins posted a 25-point third quarter, powered by six points from junior Madison Dillinger and five each from seniors Tawna Ryynanen and Cara Monette, to pull away for good en route to a 51-24 victory at the Hancock Gym.

For the Gremlins, the third quarter, and to a larger extent the entire second half, was more in tune with what head coach Julie Filpus has come to expect from her girls.

“I think the girls share in my frustration and disappointment with our effort and mindset to start the game,” said Filpus. “We have a problem where, if we miss a few shots, we get down on ourselves. I think that snowballed in the first half.

“The girls definitely regrouped in the locker room and showed the team we expect to see. This is the team that we see in practice, day in, day out. Right now, for whatever reason, they have a hard time showing that at game time.”

While it is not an excuse, keeping up with a team that has a bench longer than their entire roster was going to be a tall task for the Bulldogs. Head coach Jack Johnson was pleased with the effort of his girls, right to the final buzzer.

“It’s exciting to see that we are playing a junior/senior team with freshmen and sophomores and our freshmen and sophomores have the tenacity and the grit and the intensity to hang in there and battle as long as they did,” said Johnson.

For the Bulldogs to be competitive long-term Monday, they needed a number of things to happen over the course of the game. For the most part, that is exactly what happened in the first half, as the Gremlins (11-0 overall) got eight points from senior Sloane Zenner and only six more points from the rest of the roster.

Unfortunately, the Bulldogs (5-4 overall) were unable to take advantage of the Gremlins’ cold shooting and poor ball handling until the final five minutes when senior Maija Sebbas scored seven of her game-high 17 points to pull Hancock back within three.

Johnson was disappointed with the Bulldogs’ struggles to hit baskets when they needed them.

“We gave them a little different look than we normally do,” said Johnson. “The chips kind of fell into place for us in the first half. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish either on the offensive end. You can only hold a team like that down for so long.”

For Filpus and the Gremlins, the halftime break was an opportunity to hit the reset button on their effort level, and that showed almost immediately when Dillinger took a pass from Zenner and hit a short jumper from the left side of the floor just 49 seconds in.

A little more than a minute later, Ryynanen hit a 3-pointer from the left side to open up a nine-point advantage, 23-14.

Once Sebbas took her third foul with 5:05 left in the quarter, Monette was able to get to work, hitting a 3 and just under a minute later, stealing the ball from Bulldogs sophomore Delaney Heinonen and running the floor for a layup to expand Houghton’s lead to 13, 29-16.

“We felt like we were playing the game in the mud in the first half,” said Filpus. “We just could not get our feet off the ground.

“The bottom line is the kids hit shots in the third quarter. We got the separation and gained confidence.”

In the fourth, the Gremlins got a 3-pointer from senior Anita Magyar halfway through the quarter. Junior Kara Pietila picked up a layup off a turnover, giving her six points on the night, all of which came in the second half.

The Gremlins return to action this Friday when they travel to face Kingsford. The Bulldogs are off until next Monday when they travel to Calumet.

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