The Martin girls’ basketball team has gone through a very strange season, especially since the Christmas break.
The Lady Clippers, who were edged 42-40 by Watervliet Wednesday evening in a makeup game, won 10 of their first 11 games, but since suffering a defeat at the hands of Gobles they’ve gone 2-6 and now own a 12-7 record.
Martin led its opponent 21-15 at the half, but Watervliet caught up in the third quarter and then outscored the Clippers 15-13 in the last eight minutes to claim the tight victory.
“It was a tough loss tonight, but our effort and execution were much better than Tuesday’s game,” said coach Ben Schipper. “It was great to see us getting back to aggressively attacking the basket with the dribble drive and hard cuts. We need to continue getting back to that purposeful style offense to have the success we had the first half of the season.
“Our defense was much better tonight. Watervliet definitely had a size advantage on us with Avery Jager out again, and they really worked the ball inside in the fourth quarter. We battled hard though and we were impressed with the return of our grit tonight. Playing back to back isn’t easy and we have our last division game Friday vs Delton. So we’re going to rest up Thursday as some girls have logged some heavy minutes the last two nights.”
Torryn Harris scored 15 points, 10 in the first half, Macy Thorne added 10 and Elizabeth Reinke eight. It didn’t help that Martin netted only three of 10 free throw attempts.
The Martin boys also had a makeup game Wednesday and lost 63-55 to Fennville to fall to 1-20 overall.
