HOUGHTON — The Houghton Gremlins downed the Calumet Copper Kings on the hardwood Thursday night with a score of 55-33. It was the second time these rivals had met this season, and this outcome was quite different from their first meeting.

After having lost to the Copper Kings(6-4) 63-54 in December, Gremlins’ head coach Jared Lawson came up with a new strategy for Thursday’s game, and it worked.

“We switched up our system and our focus became our man-to-man defense. It was great to see these guys come out and play strong defense,” he said. “It is something we’ve been working on that this month.

Lawson added that last month’s loss mainly came due to the hot hand of Calumet’s Dryden Nelson who had 30 points that game. On Thursday, he had just 11.

“Kyle (Primeau) did a good job of keeping him in check all night,” Lawson said.

The Gremlins (5-5) dominated the game from the start. With their quick offense, they pushed out to a 9-0 lead thanks to triples by Mikko Salmi and Tucker Ryynanen. The Copper Kings finally got on the scoreboard with a Nelson three at the 2:20 mark. It was a 14-5 Gremlin tilt after one.

The Gremlins widen the margin in the second period thanks to some strong offensive rebounding on the part of Tucker Ryynanen. While he only had nine points, he won the accolades once again of his coach.

“Tucker does it all,” Lawson said. “I have to keep him in the game because he hustles, rebounds, plays strong defense and is great at assists.”

In the third, Houghton outscored Calumet 23-10 much to the chagrin of Copper Kings’ head coach Frank Bonacorsi.

“They did a great job defensively and hit their shots,” he said of the Gremlins.

Salmi had an impressive five three pointers on the night and led the scoring for the Gremlins with 19 points. Bryce Pugh followed with 16.

“I thought we played a good motion offense tonight, and we were able to pop some guys out to hit some threes,” Lawson said. “Overall, this was a good win for us as we have some big games coming up.”

CHS 5 9 10 9 — 33

HHS 14 12 23 6 — 55

CALUMET (33): Nelson 11, Poyhonen 6, Harmala 2, Sturos 2, Kilpela 6, Brooks 11. 3-pointers: Nelson 2. FT: 8-14.

HOUGHTON (55): Lawson 3, K. Primeau 5, Salmi 19, Ryynanen 9, Pugh 16. 3-pointers: Lawson 1, Salmi 5, Rynanen 1. FT: 8-10.

Boys: L’Anse 58, Ontonagon, 54

While the L’Anse Purple Hornets boys slipped past Ontonagon, Gladiators head coach Brittany Turin-Jilbert said the score did not reflect the effort her team put in.

“We knew going in to this one that we were very undersize, but we worked on trying to deny their big inside game,” Turin-Jilbert said. “I was really glad to see the fire in our team at the end. Even though we were down 12 points with about two minutes to go, we had an opportunity at the end to tie the game with a steal from their in-bound play.”

She added that making more free throws could have certainly helped the Gladiators cause. They were just 13-22 from the charity stripe.

Shawn Gibbons led the scoring for L’Anse with 22 points which included an impressive six 3-pointers. Eli Ostermeyer followed with 20.

For the Gladiators, Bryce Buzzo topped the scoring with 13 points.

Girls: Jeffers 71, Wakefield-Marenisco 22

The Jets scored at least 15 points a quarter and held the Cardinals to fewer than 10.

Jeffers had three players in double figures. Taylor Heinonen led the charge with 15 points. Kyla Larson followed with 14 points which included three triples. Allie Heinonen sunk 12 points.

For the Cardinals, Kyla Larson led the scoring with nine points.

Girls: Ontonagon 54, L’Anse 45

Despite having only seven players suit up Thursday night, the Ontonagon Gladiators fought hard and were able to defeat the L’Anse Purple Hornets.

“I was pretty leery about tonight. L’Anse is a good team and getting better,” said Gladiators’ head coach Tim Routheaux. “Kylee Uotila, our eighth grader, started the game for us and played great. She had an 8-0 scoring run on her own in the middle of the third quarter.”

Makennah Uotila led the scoring for the Gladiators with 23 points.

“She played hard and had at least 15 rebounds,” Routheaux said.

Taylor Sanregret had three 3-pointers for L’Anse and led the scoring for the Purple Hornets with 15.