Jamie Glenn/Daily Mining Gazett Ewen-Trout Creek’s Eli Nordine runs down the floor during a game against Lake Linden-Hubbell Tuesday at the Lake Linden-Hubbell Gym.

LAKE LINDEN — The Lake Linden-Hubbell Lakes and the Ewen-Trout Creek Panthers battled in an 81-74 finish in the Lake Linden Gym Tuesday, despite a strong first half from the Lakes.

The Lakes want into the locker room at halftime with an 11-point lead against the Panthers and appeared to have control of the floor, with easy layups and sound threes.

The Panthers made some key steals and drove the ball down the floor with an impressive eight minutes in the third quarter, closing their deficit to within six, 47-41, and taking the momentum with them.

“I thought we showed some great toughness and perseverance,” said Ewen-Trout Creek coach Brad Besonen. “Lake Linden played an outstanding first half. There was about a four-minute stretch in the second quarter when guys just weren’t missing anything. I thought we did a good job sticking with it. We made a couple of good stops and got a few buckets before the half.”

Senior Eli Nordine was the driving force for the visitors, putting up 39 of the Panthers’ 81 total points, most in the second half and in overtime as he had just four points at half.

“I thought we rebounded pretty decent. Eli really started to get going in that second half and we were able to play off of him quite a bit,” said Besonen. “I thought we handled the late-game situations really well.

“In that second overtime, Tommy (Cousineau) just came alive. I’m very proud of our guys for being able to hit shots on tired legs.”

“As a young team, thats been grinding the whole season, we’ve seen noticeable growth,” said Besonen. “It feels like we’ve been ready to turn a corner for a couple of weeks so maybe a win like this, on a back-to-back night, will spring us forward here.”

Junior Cole Gregoire broke the first overtime tie and junior Carter Crouch kept the Lakes in it with a breakaway run down the floor for a layup.

“We did what we wanted in the first overtime,” said Lakes coach Jack Kumpala. “We got the ball to the rim early and got a couple of buckets, but we’ve got to do better defensively. We had some switching issues and didn’t get on top of people. Eli knocked some threes down. We’ll get better.”

As the gym started to get louder with every shot, shots started to fall in favor of the Panthers, who pulled ahead with six three-pointers in overtime for the win.

“I thought we played pretty well overall.” said Kumpula. “We got to the rim well. We played a much better defensive game then we have been playing. It probably (was) our best game since Christmas. In that way, I was very pleased.

“The last couple of minutes we turned it over four straight times and allowed them back into the game. I think we had a double digit lead their for a while, (but) when you make mistakes against Ewen they’re going to take advantage of it. It was good for them and bad for us.”

Ewen-Trout Creek 11 14 19  15 23 – 81

Lake Linden 15 21 13 10 16 – 74

ETC — E.  Nordine 39, Cousineau 17, Driesenga 4, C. Borseth 7, J. Borseth 14; Fouls: 14; Fouled out: none; 3-point field goals: E. Nordine 6, Cousineau 3, J. Borseth 1, C. Borseth 1

LLH: Wickstrom-Huuki 2, Crouch 22, Lyons 12, Ca. Gregoire 18, Co. Gregoire 8, Wilson 3, Hill 9; Fouls: 14; Fouled out: none; 3-point field goals: Crouch 2, Co. Gregoire 2, Ca. Gregoire 1, Wilson 1, Hill 1