After losing consecutive games to league-leading Grand Rapids West Catholic and second place South Christian last week, the Wayland girls’ basketball team Tuesday night bounced back to defeat Grand Rapids Union 65-34.
The verdict left the Lady Wildcats with an overall record of 10-5.
Senior Harmony Laker, held to just two points by West Catholic Friday, pumped in 20 points, including a couple of threes, to pace the winning ballclub. Sophomore inside player Addie Sikorsky dropped in 13 points, as did sophomore Marissa Ainsworth, who also drilled a couple of threes.
With her point total, Laker became the career highest scoring Wildcat ever, no mean feat for a school that has produced all-staters such as Presley Hudson, Angie Farmer and Stephanie Ainsworth.
Wayland has lost twice to O-K Gold leader and state-ranked West Catholic this season.
Union, with the defeat, saw its overall record slip to 1-11, with its last 10 losses coming consecutively.
Fruitport 63, Hopkins boys 26
Fruitport is a new member of the O-K Silver Conference this season and it has taken the league by storm. The Trojans are battling for a Silver championship with a 6-1 record in league play and they are 14-3 overall.
The Vikings, with the loss, fell to 4-12 overall.
Hopkins girls 45 Fruitport 19
The Lady Vikings evened their overall season record at 7-7 and lifted their record in the O-K Silver Conference to 6-2 with victory. It was their fourth straight triumph and they have lost to only Calvin Christian and Belding, the O-K Silver leaders.
Martin boys 64 Hudsonville Libertas Christian 45
It was the easiest victory of the season for the Clippers as they recorded tjeir highest point total of the campaign. They improved their overall season mark to 4-10.
Plainwell 50 Martin girls 36
The Lady Clippers lost to a Division 2 school, but gave the Trojans a ballgame. In fact, they did more than that. They led 13-9 at the end of the first quarter and 23-15 at the half. It was a horrible third period that did them in, as Plainwell outgunned them 22-6.
“Tonight we had such a strong start to the game,” said coach Ben Schipper. “I was very pleased with our execution on offense, defense, and in the press break.”
Macy Thorne started out on fire, hitting 3 threes in the first quarter before exiting in the second quarter with an injury.
“Losing her scoring was a tough break tonight,” Schipper said. “I was really pleased with Anna Jager’s efforts tonight pushing the ball and attacking the rim. Avery Jager also got a lot of good looks tonight, they just weren’t falling for her.
“Torryn Harris’s aggression also led to 8 points for her.
“The third quarter just doomed us being outscored 22-6. We had a hard time keeping Plainwell’s guards in front of us and it led to some easy dump off passes to their posts beating our rotations.
“It was a hard fought battle and we continue to see improvement from our team.”
Macy Thorne scored nine points, Torryn Harris eight, Anna Jage six, Avery Jager: five points and eight rebounds Marybeth Ritchie eight rebounds
The loss dropped Martin’s overall record to 4-9. Plainwell now is 6-8.
