The Martin girls’ basketball team improved its overall season record to 9-1 Friday night with a 60-40 victory over Holland Black River.
Wayland’s 51-50 loss against Grand Rapids Catholic Central had plenty of impact on the O-K Gold Conference standings because the Wildcats entered the contest in second place with a 4-1 record.
Meanwhile, Hopkins ladies absorbed their second straight loss in O-K Silver Conference play after four straight wins, bowing 48-37 to Grandville Calvin Christian.
Macy Thorne tallied a career-high 17 points, including three three-point field goals to pace the Lady Clippers’ attack. Makala Goddard nailed a couple of threes and finished with 14 points and Torryn Harris added 10.
Martin scored in double figures in all three early quarters and coasted in the fourth period. They led 34-26 at intermission and 53-32 at the end of three quarters.
“This was truly a great team effort and it resulted in a big conference win for us,” coach Ben Schipper said. “Black River always plays so physical and scrappy, so we knew it was going to be a battle. Our focus was to be the aggressor and to match and exceed their intensity and we did just that for a full 32 minutes.
“In the locker room after the game, the girls commented how they felt each player gave maximum effort every minute of the game and us coaches couldn’t agree more. We’ve been very proud of our aggressiveness and intensity the last two games.
“The girls were itching to get back to game action because of all of our cancellations, and it was great to see them not skip a beat. Our ball movement was great tonight leading to a lot of quality shots and we crashed the boards hard.”
The coach said Torryn Harris was especially dominant on the offensive boards and that led to her season high of 10 points. He added that Thorne has been really coming on this year as a scoring threat and praised her toughness at the rim as she finishes so many “and-ones.”
“Makala Goddard did a great job picking and choosing when to take risks on our fast break tonight and I loved her aggressiveness attacking the paint,” Schipper said.
Every single player came in and contributed, including Lily Stocking, who scored her first points of the season and eight of nine Clippers scored for the second straight game.
“There are many more improvements to make, but we’re very happy with how our offensive has been blossoming the last few games,” the coach added. We feel we’ve made some minor adjustments to help our ball movement and off-ball movement and the girls are really working well together.”
The Lady Wildcats were up by nine points midway in the third quarter, buoyed by some sparkling defense from Marissa Ainsworth and Laney Wolf. But once again, turnovers did Wayland in, particularly down the stretch.
Addy Sikorski scored 12 points, Harmony Laker 10, Ainsworth 9, Reese Coughlin 7 and Wolf 6.
Wayland fell to 7-6 overall and 4-2 in the O-K Gold. Catholic Central, with the win, remains unbeaten in the league.
Hopkins had won four straight in the Silver earlier this month, but has lost to Belding and now Calvin Christian. The Lady Vikings’ overall record now is 4-7.